


Eight

by GeckoBoy



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Zombie Apocalypse, Angst, Anxiety, Anxiety Attacks, Artist Keith (Voltron), Bisexual Lance (Voltron), Character Death, Cuban Lance (Voltron), Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Fluff and Angst, Gay Keith (Voltron), Hurt/Comfort, Keith and Shiro are Adoptive Siblings, Korean Keith (Voltron), M/M, Orphan Keith (Voltron), References to Depression, Slow Burn, Zombie Apocalypse, photographer lance
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-09-08
Updated: 2018-02-09
Packaged: 2018-12-25 11:02:13
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 20
Words: 47,146
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12034545
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GeckoBoy/pseuds/GeckoBoy
Summary: There used to be eight of us, and now… Well, now I’m alone.By 3pm, most public buildings had barricaded the doors and weren’t letting anybody in or out.By 3:30pm, the government declared martial law in the state.And by 5pm, the outbreak had taken over half of the city.





	1. 1 - The Beginning

There used to be eight of us, and now… Well, now I’m alone. 

Before the virus, things were much simpler; I was a college student, studying art and photography away from home, and I lived in a crappy apartment in the middle of the city with my brother, who was the only family I had left. Shiro and I weren’t real brothers – he’d practically adopted me after I ran away from a foster home when I was a kid, and I found that I was more happy staying with him than I had been anywhere else. I left my last foster home at the age of 18 to go to college, choosing somewhere closer to where Shiro lived so I had the excuse of finally moving in, and for the next few months, things were great. 

Sure, our apartment was a little worse for wear, but we had a room each, and just enough space for us to get by, even if we had to share a bathroom. I was lucky that my campus was only a 5-minute walk from the apartment block, meaning I always got to sleep for an extra half an hour in the morning rather than be up at the most ridiculous time to travel all the way there for a class. We lived a comfortable life, with Shiro bringing in enough money to support both of us without my half of the rent, we could always afford to go out, or order food in when we wanted to, or have friends over when neither of us were feeling particularly antisocial. It was nice.

I remember waking up one morning and going about my usual routine. I managed to drag myself out of bed after the compulsory half an hour of snoozing my alarm, haul myself in a half-conscious state into the bathroom, and lazily shower before I was even remotely prepared for the day. Shiro, as usual, was already awake and making breakfast, dressed in his work uniform, and getting ready to leave for work himself. As I stumbled into the kitchen and dropped into my seat at the table, I rubbed my eyes and tried to wake myself up a little more before I ate anything, remembering that the last time I ate breakfast while half-asleep, I stabbed myself in the hand with a fork. 

“Look who finally rose from the dead,” Shiro joked as he set a plate down in front of me. I simply grumbled in response, starting to fill my face with my breakfast. This was a regular occurrence, so I knew that Shiro was used to me not being able to physically function until at least 11am, even when I had classes before then. “I’ll be working late tonight so don’t forget your keys,” He reminded me, pouring himself some coffee and sitting in his seat opposite. 

“This is the third time this week,” I said as I got up and walked to the sink and grabbed some water. “What can there possibly need to be done? I swear there’s more than just you and Matt that could work instead,”

“I’m sorry Keith… I know it was supposed to be Pizza night, but I can’t help it. Matt thinks that the others are really onto something in the other lab, and we want to keep working on our project before the breakthrough so we have as much use of the lab as we can get. If they finally figure it out today, we might not have access to our equipment for months,” Of course, I understood, but that didn’t stop me feeling slightly disappointed. I always enjoyed pizza night, and it wasn’t like Shiro to brush it off so quickly. Whatever this big break was, it had to be something incredibly important for him to be so concerned about his own project because of it. 

“Whatever you say, I guess I’ll just have to sit here alone and fill my face with 2 pizzas to make up for you being late,” I sighed, finishing my food, and standing up from the table and grabbing my bag from by the door. 

“Keith I’m sorry,” He said genuinely. Don’t get me wrong, I understood, but I couldn’t help feeling a little shitty about it. “I’ll make it up to you, I promise,” 

“The you owe me 2 pizza nights next week,” I told him with a small smile. He returned it and threw me a bag. “What’s-“

“Lunch. So I know you’ll eat today,” I smiled more and shoved the bag into my backpack, along with a sketchbook and my pencils. “I’ll see you later, okay?” I nodded as I grabbed my hoodie and pulled it over my head, then crammed a few other things into my bag before leaving and shoving my headphones into my ears. 

The walk never took a long time, although that day it seemed like an eternity. In hindsight, I can see why, but at the time, I was completely oblivious to what was going on around me. As usual, I stopped at the campus coffee shop and picked up a coffee that didn’t taste like shit (although I’d never tell Shiro that I hated his coffee to his face), and took a slow walk up to the library, where I’d sit and draw for a while until my first class. 

Even though I’d been here nearly 6 months, I still hadn’t made any of these mythical friends that Shiro assured me I would make. Sure, I talked to the other students in my classes, but none of them really interested me enough for me to want to be friends with them. They were all your typical photography students; carrying around their portfolio wherever they went, camera constantly in their hands and most were just plain loud and obnoxious. In all honesty, I didn’t want anything to do with them whether I was in the same classes as them or not, but for the sake of keeping Shiro off my back, I wasn’t an asshole to their faces. That, and it was always helpful to have someone to let me know if a class was cancelled.

As the clock hit 9am, I started to move through the crowd of people to my class, only half paying attention to what was going on around me. In fact, the whole day went this way. I couldn’t seem to focus on anything at all, and I found myself aimlessly doodling in my sketchbook for most of the day. At the time, I thought that maybe I’d had a weird dream and my mind couldn’t focus properly, but as the day went on I started to see what was wrong. 

It all went wrong about half way through my day. I was leaving my second class of the day, and found that there were significantly less people around the campus than there usually were. Confused, I decided to go out and see if there were many people outside, guessing that there was probably some kind of sports thing going on that I honestly couldn’t care less about, only to find that there were just as few people around. So, being the socially inept asshole I was, I simply chose to be grateful for the peace and quiet, picking the perfect spot under an oak tree on the grounds and taking out my sketchbook and phone. I hesitated as I saw the news update on the screen.

'Citizens warned to stay inside as freak lab accident sends scientists into a killing frenzy.'

… What?

I clicked on the headline and started reading curiously, only to feel my heart sink. It was Shiro’s lab It was where he was working. There was an accident in the labs where he was right then. He could have been- 

Oh. 

'The emergency call showed signs of panic as one of the leading technicians attacked and killed 4 of his colleagues, leaving another 6 injured and seeking immediate medical attention. Police have advised those in the immediate area to stay inside their homes and lock their doors, for the killer has not yet been neutralized and their location has not yet been confirmed.'

Fuck. Fuck, no, this couldn’t be happening. 

Not Shiro. 

Anyone but Shiro. 

I stood up and shoved my things back into my bag, then made a dash back to the apartment. Surely, he had to have left early. Shiro wouldn’t have stayed if there was something dangerous happening. He had to have gone home. At least, I begged that he had gone home. I don’t think I’d ever ran as fast in my life, running through the strangely quiet streets, and throwing myself into the elevator to get back up to our apartment. My heart was racing, and I had this awful feeling in my gut that was threatening to make me throw up the breakfast I’d eaten earlier on. 

As soon as the elevator opened again, I rushed to the door to our shared apartment, fumbling with my keys and shakily unlocking it before falling through and desperately looking around. It was exactly how I had left it that morning, other than a note on the kitchen counter, accompanied by a few notes and some change that Shiro had left for me to order food that night. The note itself was a short and simple one, in his usual hurried writing which simply said ‘sorry’, with a stupid drawing underneath it. With a shaky hand, I picked the note up and held it for a moment, my eyes starting to sting. 

For a while, I simply sat in the kitchen staring at the writing. Not knowing what to do. I didn’t know what was happening, but I knew that calling him would not be the best idea. If he was still alive and trying to hide, the last thing he needed was for a phone call to let whoever it was know exactly where he was. Instead, I decided to turn on the tv and watch the updates, trying to spot him being rushed out of the building among the survivors. I knew I shouldn’t get my hopes up. I knew that the chances of him making it out alive were slim, and as the connection to the news network suddenly cut out, I knew it was probably too late. 

By 3pm, most public buildings had barricaded the doors and weren’t letting anybody in or out. 

By 3:30pm, the government declared martial law in the state. 

And by 5pm, the outbreak had taken over half of the city. 

I started to pack some essentials into a bag as soon as I heard the screaming from down on the street. Luckily for me, I knew my way around a knife – because what could I say, I was a little shit as a kid, and I’d learned how to defend myself in case anything bad happened while I was between homes. I always kept one under my bed, just in case someone ever broke in, and I was suddenly very thankful for my fear of being attacked in my sleep. I pulled it from where I had taped it to one of the slats under my mattress, and carefully examined it to make sure it was still okay for me to use. I hadn’t used it for anything malicious, only to throw at the wall at the orphanages, or to carve my name into a piece of furniture at an old foster home. Maybe now it would be time to finally use it. 

There were a few more things I decided to pack too; a change of clothes, which I managed to fold small enough to fit into a spare pair of shoes at the bottom of my bag, and some basic supplies. I grabbed all the food I could from the cupboards that wouldn’t go out of date too soon and wasn’t too heavy to carry, and padded anything that would clink together in the bag with a blanket which I took from the back of the sofa. The screams were getting closer by this point, and I felt my hands tremble as I hurried to zip up the bag and grab another two knives from the drawer in the kitchen, easily fitting them into my belt in a way that they wouldn’t stab me in the legs when running. 

And running was what I did. 

The apartment block was silent, and I found that creeping down the stairs was probably going to be the best bet if I wanted to get out of here alive. There was likely someone already making their way up to the top in the lift so they could scavenge the place for anything that would aid in their survival, but I had already thought of that. I hadn’t even seen anybody who had been attacking yet, but form the screams and the fact that I spent a ridiculous amount of time on the internet and watching apocalypse movies, to me it was obvious what was going to happen. 

The sight I saw when I left the building was horrific. I hadn’t had the nerve to open the curtains to look outside while I was hiding out in the apartment. The whole street was a mess; cars with smashed windscreens, glass everywhere… And blood. The blood was the wort part. It seemed to be everywhere, and I couldn’t look anywhere without seeing the spatter of crimson covering some surface in that direction. In all honestly, I was relieved that I never had a fear of blood, as I could block it out for the most part and just focus on running away from the source of the screaming. 

I wasn’t the only one out there either. 

There must have been about 20 other people in the next few streets, all apparently having the same idea as I had. The difference here was that only half of them looked… normal. The others seemed to the only half aware of their surroundings, stumbling around as though they were drunk, but they seemed to have very sensitive hearing. I observed for a moment, my back pressed against the wall of the apartment block, and watched as their head snapped around at any slight disturbance in the sickening silence in the air. I’d have to sneak around them if I wanted to avoid the risk of them being the attackers. 

Staying still for a moment, I waited until the few that were around had started to stumble away in the other direction, and then I pushed off from the wall, sprinting down the street toward the campus again. If there was a way I could get in and find someone I knew, it would only increase my chances of getting through this. At least, that’s what I was hoping anyway. 

The next step was to find Shiro. Dead or alive.


	2. 2 - Allies

Getting to the building wasn’t as big of a problem as I thought it would be. The challenge was trying to find a way inside that didn’t involve breaking something and making myself look like a threat to the people inside. 

I should have seen it coming; if all the other buildings in the area had gone into a lockdown, the campus must have as well, and so when I arrived at the main doors to find them locked and barricaded, I silently cursed myself for going home without thinking about how I wouldn’t be able to get back in. I silently cursed and walked around the building for a while, checking all the doors I could, only to find them all locked. As for the people inside, I hadn’t actually seen them. My guess was that they were hiding out in the cafeteria in the centre of the building, which was separated from the classrooms by a circular courtyard which surrounded it. 

There were a lot of people that lived in the city, so I was surprised by the lack of the slow ones that were walking around. Since getting onto the grounds, I had only seen two, and had managed to sneak around them easily by hiding in the foliage and creeping silently around the edge of the campus to reach the main building. Now, the fact that I’d made it this far almost didn’t seem worth it. Instead of trying anything else, I simply climbed up into one of the trees and perched in view of one of the windows, keeping an eye out for anybody who could help me. 

I’m not sure how long I sat up there, but after a while, I started to hear sirens. I looked across the campus toward the street, where I could see a long line of police cars and several riot vans all passing by quickly, drawing the attention of the slows. I stayed silent and watched as instead of approaching the sound at their normal, stumbling pace, they started to sprint after the vehicles as though their lives depended on it. My heart was in my throat, and I wanted to look away as I heard a woman screaming, but I couldn’t take my eyes off what was happening just a few metres away from me. 

“Get off me!” The woman screamed, trying desperately to wriggle free of a man’s grasp. He was clearly one of them; his eyes were frosted over and there was a significant amount of blood leaking through his white shirt at his shoulder, where it had been ripped – presumably bitten through. She was putting up a fight, and a good one at that, but looked like whatever had happened to these slow people had made them stronger. The man was holding her still with one arm around her middle, and had started to drag her away. She screamed again, but it only seemed to aggravate it.

I was frozen to the spot as it happened. I watched as the… creature… grabbed the woman by the hair and tilted her head to the side, then violently ripped a chunk of flesh from her shoulder, right over where her main blood vessels were. I felt physically sick, and the bloodcurdling screams were as much as I could take. I closed my eyes and covered my ears, trying to get the image out of my head. 

After a minute or so, things returned to the eerie silence again, and I looked up hesitantly, only to see the corpse of the woman lying on the floor, almost completely ripped apart. The creature had long since wandered off, and the grounds were eerily silent, just as before, only now, there was a dead body of a person – or what was left of her – between me and the building. It took me a moment to try and get myself to breathe properly again after the panic, but in the end, I managed to drag myself out of the tree and wandered closer to the remains, where I had seen a bag with supplies in. 

It wasn’t like she was going to be needing them now…

I quickly looked through the bag before climbing back up into my hiding spot again and deciding which things I should keep with me. Inside, were ziplock bags of carefully rationed food, which I quickly switched into my bag, knowing there would soon be a food shortage. The woman had been smart about what she’d packed, as I found several throwing knives in the front pocket which looked like they had seen at least some use in the past, and some medical supplies. Both things I happily took.

Then, as I rummaged through the clothes, I felt my fingers brush against something cold – something metal. I froze for a moment before taking a proper look. 

There was a gun. A sleek designed black gun with an ample amount of ammunition packed with it, wrapped inside a shirt. I was hesitant to take it, but after seeing what had happened to the girl, I knew that this wasn’t something that was going to be solved easily. This was now a matter of life or death, kill or be killed, and I didn’t want to risk not being able to protect myself. This was the perfect opportunity, and so I picked up the gun and all the ammunition in the shirt and switched it into my own bag, before dropping the rest of the things that were no use to me down onto the floor.

It was as I finished repacking my bag when I heard the voice.

From where I was perched in the tree, I could only just see his face; dark circles under his eyes, likely from stress or lack of sleep (whether that was to do with the current situation or just from the stress of his classes), and messy brown hair that fell over his forehead. I recognised him easily, and it was the familiarity that made my brain relax as he flung the window open more. 

“Keith?” Lance called quietly over to me. The tree was close enough that I could climb over and only be a few feet away from the window, so I did, scurrying over with my bag secured to my back. “Keith how the hell are you here? I thought you were in class-“

“I had to go home,” I told him, not wanting to disclose any details of what had happened since I left the campus earlier. “They wouldn’t let me back in, so I was just kinda… hiding out here I guess,” 

“Are you hurt?” He asked, leaning out of the window more to check if there were any scratches – or worse, bites – on my arms. I shook my head. “I’m gonna get my ass kicked for doing this, but I can’t leave you out here, can you climb through?”

“If I give you my bag will you move so I can jump over?” I asked him. He nodded and held his arm out to take it. I slipped the straps off my shoulders and handed it to him carefully, and he nearly dropped it upon feeling how heavy it was. 

“What the fuck do you have in this thing, Keith?” He asked, dragging it into the room and moving away from the open window. I stood up on the branch and took a few steps back, then took a running jump through the window, landing on my shoulder, and skidding across the floor into a table on the other side of the room. I groaned in pain as I pulled myself up to sit against the wall, and Lance closed the window, placing the bag down on the floor and rushing over. “You okay?”

“M’fine, it’s just gonna bruise a bit,” I said quietly, hissing in pain as I pulled my hand away from it. 

“It doesn’t look fine,” He said simply. “Let me-“

“It’s fine. God, trust it to be you that found me in the damn tree. I forgot how annoying you were,” I complained, moving away from him a little as he reached out to look at my shoulder. Lance rolled his eyes. 

“Could have been anybody else but you. You’re still just as much of an asshole as you’ve always been,” He snapped back, pulling my bag over to me. “You’re welcome by the way, I was only trying to help,” 

“Maybe if you gave me a chance to say it I would have thanked you, there’s no need to be bitchy,” I pulled the bag closer and began searching through it for something to put over the graze that was forming on the back of my shoulder, finding only some bandages and alcohol to clean wounds as the only useful items inside the supply box. This probably wasn’t the best use of either, so I simply put them back and tried to move my arm more. 

Lance sighed and sat on one of the tables. I almost felt bad for what I’d said, but I knew an apology meant me actually showing that, and so I decided not to say anything more about it. It was only now I noticed that the room was completely empty other than the two of us. Why was he here all alone? Lance had loads of friends here. Surely, he should be with them so they could freak out together. But no, he was here, in an art room, all on his own. 

“Why aren’t you with everyone else?” I asked him quickly, not thinking before the words left my lips. Lance frowned slightly, looking down at his feet. 

“Well… Hunk was at home today because he wasn’t feeling well, and Pidge was visiting her parents out of town, so I was planning on just getting on with work today,” He explained quietly, taking a seat on the floor next to me. I frowned a little. Pidge was Matt’s younger sister. I knew her quite well; she used to come to Shiro’s apartment with Matt before I moved in properly, and we’d always play stupid games and order food when they visited for the night, and we always had a laugh with them. If she wasn’t here then there was no knowing where she was. 

“That sucks…” I said quietly. “Do Pidge’s parents live far away?”

“They lived in Texas the last time I checked… But even if they don’t now, it isn’t likely whatever it is that’s attacking people has gotten far enough to reach them – at least… I hope it hasn’t,” I sat up a little more against the wall and sighed. “And Hunk… I don’t even know if he was well enough to get out of our apartment. If anything happens to him-“  
“Don’t think like that,” I said quickly as I saw him getting more upset. “That’s not the way to think if you want to find him. I’m sure he’s fine. He’s a strong guy, he’s probably either barricaded the doors and windows, or he’s fighting whatever they are off. He’s gonna be fine,”

Lance smiled slightly and fiddled with the sleeve on his jacket. “You’re right,” He agreed. “I guess I’m more worried about everyone else around here… I’ve not seen another sane person outside since I got here this morning and at the rate its going- fuck… What if this is it Keith? What do we do if we end up trapped here with no way out?” 

“Look Lance… I’m not trying to make you feel awkward, but crying about it all isn’t always the answer okay? If we’re gonna get out of this alive then we need to make sure that we have level heads. We can do this,” I assured him. He smiled a little more. “Plus, the girl that died had a gun, and so now I have a gun,” I added quietly. 

“You what?!” He kept his voice quiet, but I still rolled my eyes. “Keith you can’t just bring a gun into a classroom-“

“Will you calm down? It’s hidden in the bottom of my bag, and I’m only gonna use it if I need to. I promise I won’t take it out of my bag unless it’s absolutely necessary.” He still seemed to be freaking out, but he hadn’t moved away, which I suppose was both good and bad. Instead, he slumped down more against the wall, looking away from the bag and folding his arms. 

Lance was one of the photography students who I never really wanted to be associated with. He was studying photography and dance, and hardly took anything seriously. He was the loud and obnoxious type; he flirted with anything with a pulse, and always got invited to the parties that went on across the campus which were always held by the students that lived in the dorms. Apparently, they were always fun, although my idea of fun was slightly different to most people’s. 

Of course, knowing Lance meant I also knew Hunk. We never really spoke much, but he was probably one of the kindest people I’d ever met. He wasn’t someone who you’d immediately associate with Lance, but they were best friends, and were pretty much inseparable. They had been for years apparently, only I had only known the pair of them since starting college. Hunk was the type of person who would bring anyone food if they’d forgotten to eat breakfast, or the type who constantly asked if you were okay, even if you’d told him you were fine about 6 times in the last hour. He was the designated mother. 

To find out that he was potentially in danger too was horrible. Not only did I now have Shiro to be worried about, but Pidge and Hunk too, and the emotional ties I found that I had to these people was more than concerning. I knew deep down that if we did find them all, it would only make things more painful were something to happen to any of us. I was initially hesitant to agree to stay with Lance until it was safe enough to go and find Hunk, and maybe even Pidge. 

But for now, we were just two. And I was happy with that.


	3. 3 - Family

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> '“Keith?” Lance barely whispered as the last few people started to settle down for the night. I was just starting to drift off, so it was fortunate for him that I even heard him. “You awake?”
> 
> “Now I am,” I sighed, sitting up more against the wall. “What’s up?”
> 
> “Can you come for a walk with me? I can’t sleep…” He muttered into the blanket. I raised an eyebrow a little as he sat up, not understanding why he needed me to go with him. His eyes were red and his hair a complete mess. “And I’m kinda scared of the dark,”'

After finally getting into the building, I found that there were only more problems at hand. 

Those that were inside weren’t exactly thrilled to see someone with blood on his hands walking around the hallways of their base, even if I didn’t contribute to how it was spilled in the first place. In fact, there were more people here that tried to avoid me than there usually were. Not that I was complaining or anything. The one person that stayed glued to my side was the most irritating, and I found that the longer I was around him, the more infuriated I got at the fact that we had a deal to stick together. 

It took Lance a grand total of 20 minutes after I announced that I had a gun to go back to his usual self. When we reached the cafeteria, where most of the students were camped out with blankets, he simply returned to how he acted on a regular day – flirting with anything with a pulse and being an all-round idiot in front of them. Somehow, it lightened the mood, and soon enough, the attention was drawn away from me and the blood that had started to dry on my favourite hoodie, and to Lance and his ridiculous jokes. As bad as they were, I was grateful. 

I took the opportunity to assess the damage to my hoodie. Sure, this could be fixed with a bit of water, but the blood would probably still stain the white material. Luckily, there was only a little bit on the end of the sleeves, which were too long anyway, so I simply took my knife and cut the material away just above where the blood stained it. I held one of my arms out to check if I’d really fucked it up, but the material still pretty much touched my fingertips, so it was still wearable. 

After an hour or so, things started to calm down a little. It was starting to get dark now, and although the streets had grown quiet, I couldn’t stop thinking about what I’d seen earlier on. It was like it had imprinted itself into the back of my mind so that it was all I saw whenever I closed my eyes. I didn’t know who the girl was, nor did I care that I’d disrespected her memory by looting her body the second I saw the opportunity. What disturbed me the most was that I knew she could have been Shiro. Or Pidge. Or Hunk. 

I bit the inside of my cheek, pulling the borrowed blanket around my shoulders more as I slumped against the wall. It wasn’t exactly cold, but I wasn’t the first person to admit it would have been much warmer in the comfort of our own beds. By my side, Lance was curled up in a ball facing away from me, a blanket covering him and tucked comfortably under his chin in his attempt to keep warm. Sure, the floor wasn’t comfortable, but it was all we had to sleep on until someone came to help us, and we were making the most of what we had. 

I couldn’t have been later than 10, and yet there were so many people desperately trying to get some sleep. I usually didn’t go to sleep until late anyway, so I was just trying to make myself tired in the dim light of the cafeteria as some people sat around and talked quietly. Since we got in here, Lance hadn’t spoken to me, but it seemed to suit us both just fine. There was no mention of my arrival at all, other than when he asked how my shoulder was just before we got here.

“Keith?” Lance barely whispered as the last few people started to settle down for the night. I was just starting to drift off, so it was fortunate for him that I even heard him. “You awake?”

“Now I am,” I sighed, sitting up more against the wall. “What’s up?”

“Can you come for a walk with me? I can’t sleep…” He muttered into the blanket. I raised an eyebrow a little as he sat up, not understanding why he needed me to go with him. His eyes were red and his hair a complete mess. “And I’m kinda scared of the dark,” 

I hesitated for a moment before nodding, standing quietly and helping him to his feet. With most people already asleep, it was simple to get out of the room unnoticed and onto the courtyard. We walked in silence for a while, not knowing what to say to one another. Before all this happened, I don’t think I’d said one word to him about anything other than when we were forced to work together for projects. It was going to be difficult to start trusting someone I didn’t know. 

“Do you think they’ll really come and get us?” Lance asked me quietly after a while. It was a thought that had crossed my mind too, because what idiots would send in a recovery team to save civilians that were probably going to be dead in a few days anyway? It would make more sense for them to boarder off the city and contain it, then just neutralize it once it’s taken over so there would be no chance of it spreading any further. Of course, I didn’t tell him that.

“Well… They said they would on the news in the last broadcast… And there was the radio broadcast that told everyone to stay calm and find somewhere safe to stay, so maybe they’re waiting until things calm down a little before they send anybody out here,” I lied. The last thing I needed was to panic Lance any more than he already was. We were going to have to stick together if either of us wanted to survive this. 

He was quiet for a moment as we kept walking slowly, listening to the sounds of the city – our city – that had been taken over. “I wish I’d never left Cuba…” He muttered quietly, watching his feet as he walked. I frowned a little. “My parents saved for years so I could come here to study. I left my friends and family behind, argued with my siblings about leaving… and now I might not even see them again,” He explained further. Of course, that was why he was so worried… Lance missed his family. 

“Siblings huh?” I questioned, trying to lighten the mood a little. His mouth curled into a small smile.

“Yeah… 5 that live at home, and 4 that have already left,” My eyes widened a little in surprise. “I’m the oldest at home, the youngest is only 3, and the eldest, Daniel, is 27… and then there’s the goat and the dogs and-“

“Hold up… you had a goat?” I asked in disbelief. He chuckled and nodded. 

“She’s my brother’s. She’s house trained and everything; sleeps on the end of his bed like a dog would. Her name’s Sugar,” I smiled a little. Maybe there was a lot more to Lance than I thought. “My other brother Ben has a tank of geckos that he calls his children. The kid is 16 and has taken to mothering lizards in his spare time. What 16-year-old does that?” 

I found myself laughing along to Lance’s little stories about his family for a while as we took a slow walk around the hallways of the building slowly. It was still dimly lit, but I understood why he wouldn’t want to come out of the cafeteria for a walk on his own. It was undeniably creepy, and given the current situation, I was anxious about something jumping out of an empty classroom and attacking us at any second. It was reassuring that Lance was with me. At least I’d have some backup were anything to happen.   
“Thanks for walking with me,” He said after a moment of silence on the way back. “You didn’t have to say you would… I know we never really got on,”

I shrugged. “You really think I’m gonna hold a grudge after what happened? I’m sure as much as you annoyed me that I can put it behind me,” I told him. And it was true. I didn’t want to have to live through this nightmare with someone who thought I hated him. “How about we start over again?”

“What, like we’ve just met?” He questioned. 

“Sure. Let’s pretend until now we’d never met one another,” I clarified. He smiled and held out his hand, and I almost rolled my eyes. 

“Well then, it’s nice to meet you, mullet boy,” He said. I shook my head and shook his hand. “The name’s Lance,” 

“Just to clarify, you are not calling me mullet boy,” I told him, causing him to withdraw his hand. 

“Keithhhh you’re supposed to introduce yourself!” He whined. “What happened to starting over again?”

“Oh fine… I’m Keith, and you’re annoying,” I mocked. He laughed and shook my hand again. 

“Hey! You should be asleep!” One of the wardens called as he paced down the hall toward us. He looked irritated that we were out of bed, and Lance quickly grabbed my hand and pulled me with him as we ran back to the cafeteria, laughing to ourselves. 

When we got back inside, I settled back down on the floor where I was slumped against the wall before, only this time, I lay down, using my bag as a pillow and pulling the blanket over myself, feeling significantly more tired than I felt before. Maybe the walk had done the both of us some good, for within a few minutes, I could hear Lance’s quiet snores from my left, and I felt my eyelids grow heavier and heavier by the second. Before I knew it, I was waking up to the chatter of breakfast, and Lance forcing a plate with some food on it toward me. 

I ate in silence, and checked to see if there was any signal on my phone before thinking through what we should do next. Surely, staying here wasn’t going to be the solution to all of this. Eventually, the supplies would run out and everyone here would have to leave to find somewhere else to settle into until we got help. There weren’t many places we could go, even in a decently sized city like we lived in. The main sources of food would be gone in a few days, and it would be too dangerous to go out and loot places without planning.   
“Hey…” Lance slumped down next to me after I’d finished eating. “Look at this,” He held his phone out for me to look at, his voice quiet as though he didn’t want anybody to overhear the conversation. I skim read the long text message he’d received and looked at him, a little confused.

“You have signal,” I stated quiet enough that only he could hear me. Of course, that wasn’t the news he was trying to draw my attention to. The message was from Hunk, explaining that he was still okay, but had to barricade himself into their apartment so that nobody could get in. I felt a wave of relief as I read the message again, and turned to see Lance, not exactly happy, but with an underlying look of worry adorning his features. 

“He can’t get out of the apartment block Keith…” He reminded me quietly. I frowned slightly. “What if they get in and-“

“Lance, what did I tell you yesterday about looking at things that way? If you keep the idea that he’s not going to be okay in your head, then you’ll make yourself feel worse,” I reminded him. He sighed in response, slumping down further so that only his shoulder blades were pressed back against the wall. 

“I can’t just sit here and wait for help Keith; Hunk has been my best friend since we were kids, and I’m not just gonna stand by and watch while he’s trapped out in the fucking apocalypse.” He snapped. I stayed silent for a moment, releasing my grip on his phone as he took it back, and then looking down at my own, suddenly realising that if Shiro were truly okay, he would have done the same as Hunk had. “… I’m sorry Keith,”

“It’s fine,” I responded a little too quickly. I pulled my bag toward me and rummaged through it, looking for the note that he’d left in the kitchen for me and taking another look at it. The corners of my eyes burned slightly as I bit back the tears at the thought of never seeing Shiro again and my voice quivered as I repeated myself. “It’s fine…”  
Lance’s face softened a little and he sat up, reading the short note over my shoulder and then placing a hand reassuringly over the one I was using to keep myself propped up on the floor. “I shouldn’t have snapped… I didn’t think about you then... You have family out there too huh?”

I almost cringed at the word, but I held it back as I carefully tucked the note back into the sketch book in the back of my bag that I had packed to bring with me. “I wouldn’t call it family… Shiro is my brother, but he’s all I’ve got,” I told him hesitantly before moving my hand from under his. “So, I understand Lance… I really do understand what you’re going through,”

He looked almost guilty as he gave me a small, but sad smile. “What do you think he’s doing right now?” He asked me. I shrugged. 

“My guess is that he’s fighting whatever it is out there… He’s strong. He can fight well enough, even if he doesn’t like to. I’m sure he’s fighting his way through it all,” I told him. He smiled a little more genuinely as I flicked through some photos on my phone. “But I guess we can ask him that when we find him,” 

“Find him?” He questioned after what I said settled properly. 

“Yeah,” I packed the last of my things back into my bag, shoving the blanket I had slept under in there too. “But first, we’re gonna go and get Hunk,”


	4. 4 - Outside

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> '“Lance,” I hissed quietly as he started to step closer to the sounds a disturbance in a nearby side street. He turned to look at me. “Your shoes,” 
> 
> “I can’t help it, my feet sweat when I get nervous,” He admitted. I rolled my eyes and kept up my slow steps ahead, avoiding the glass on the floor and treading carefully around what I assumed were the remains of people, although it was difficult to tell. It just looked like piles of flesh and blood, and the sight of it was making me feel even more sick as I saw it littering the streets.'

We planned things through between the two of us over the next hour or so. It would have been stupid to leave without a proper plan, and I had no idea where Lance and Hunk lived, so there was no chance of me finding it by myself if we got split up. Lance brought up a map and pointed out where it was exactly that we would be heading, and luckily, I immediately recognised it. It wasn’t too far away from Shiro’s apartment – a few streets maybe – and so I found it easier to plan the safest route for us to take to avoid the worst of the trouble. 

We didn’t sit in the cafeteria while we talked; it was too crowded and there were too many people around the listen to what we were planning, which triggered a sense of paranoia in by head that I just couldn’t ignore. Instead, we sat upstairs in one of the art rooms, which was thankfully, very familiar to me, and drew out the map we needed to plan the correct route and highlight any problems we could face on our way there. 

“So, we avoid the main streets. Anywhere that sells food is likely to be either full of people taking shelter, or people who don’t want as many survivors. Either way, it’s a bad idea to run into them anyway. They’ll be guarding the food and supplies they have,” I explained quickly as I crossed out the main roads on our map. Lance seemed to be studying the other routes quietly, his brow furrowed in thought and his eyes completely focussed. I’d never seen him like this before, and felt myself studying his features as he marked a few more things on the map, almost surprised that he had a serious face behind his usual shit-eating grin.

“I say we take this route – it’s gonna take a little longer, but we should get there in once piece. It pretty much avoids every main street except this one,” He placed his finger on the map and I nodded. One main road couldn’t be too much trouble. There was always going to be a risk there, even if we tried to avoid as much as we could. “But what if we get attacked?”

“Then we fight back,” I told him as though it was obvious. “I don’t know if you’ve forgotten, but we’re more than prepared for this. I have everything we could possibly need in my bag,” Lance nodded nervously, then looked back down at the map, a look of worry in his eyes. 

“I can’t use a knife,” He said quietly. “I’d be terrified of getting too close to them… What if it gets me? I’m not strong enough to fight it off,” He had a point. A knife was probably not the best idea for him, but we only had one gun between us, and if it came to it, we’d need to both be able to protect ourselves.   
“This is a last resort okay?” I said as I took the gun and a box of ammunition from my bag. Lance’s face paled slightly. “You said yesterday that you and your brothers used to go paintballing? Then you’ll know how to use it better than I do,”   
“But-“  
“Lance, I can’t shoot straight. I’ve tried.” I insisted. “Shiro took me to a shooting range for my birthday last year and I was completely hopeless, so I’d be more comfortable sticking with a knife. You can still have one of them, but if one gets too close and you get scared, all you have to do is point and shoot, okay?”

“You’re sure?” He asked me, unsure of himself. “I mean… I might have been exaggerating when I said that I was the best at paintball in the family… Although they did call me sharpshooter, I wasn’t lying there-“

“Lance,” I stopped him. He looked up at me. “Stop rambling. I trust you,” 

His features softened a little, and after a moment, he shakily took the gun, not taking it out of the shirt, and hid it in the waistband of his jeans under his shirt, concealing it easily. “That’s a shocker, I heard you don’t trust anybody,”

“You heard right, so be thankful you’ve gained the little trust I have,” I told him, taking out a couple of knives from the bag and checking how sharp they were. I was lucky that I’d picked a few up, as a few of the ones I’d brought from home wouldn’t be much good, but I made use of my own, which was always kept sharp just in case I ever needed it. The looted knives were probably better used as throwing knives, as they were smaller and had thinner blades that could be sharpened easier. I threw one in the air, much to Lance’s horror, and threw one at one of the displays after catching it between my fingers by the blade, hitting the portrait straight between the eyes with the blade. 

He blinked a few times before I smiled and paced across the room to pull it from the painting. “I don’t know if anybody’s ever told you, but you’re just a little bit scary.” He said simply, his gaze following me as I secured the knife back in my belt. 

“That’s nice to know I guess,” I joked, patting him on the shoulder as I walked back over to the table. “Just means one of us is gonna be able  
to scare the survivors away when we leave later. It’ll be an advantage for the both of us.” 

“What is it with you short people being so mean and scary all the time?” He asked as we started to pack our things up. I looked up at him a little confused as he began to put some things into his bag. “Y’know… Pidge is kinda terrifying on a normal day, and you’re a secret knife-wielding badass, is it something to do with the shortness gene or something?”  
I paused for a second, placing the handful of knives down on the table and thinking over what he had just said. “Did you just call me short?” I asked, almost in disbelief. He blinked at me in response, then walked over and stood directly in front of me. He stood only a few inches taller. 

“Yeah, I did. You’re short,” He said without hesitation, then reaching up and patting me on the head. I gritted my teeth to stop myself from grabbing his hand and throwing him into the wall for patronising me. “It’s not a bad thing. Not everyone is blessed with my good looks; we get what we’re given apparently,”

I almost laughed aloud at that, instead, just turning back to my bag, and continuing to pack the rest of our belongings into it neatly. We had separated a lot of the things I’d brought with me into both my backpack, and Lance’s messenger bag which he had brought to class with him. After discarding the notebooks, apart from one which he refused to leave behind, there was plenty of room for us to both carry half of the supplies we had between us, saving my still aching shoulder from as much weight. 

We had to plan our way out of the building carefully; nobody wanted us to leave, or at least, the wardens had told everyone to not open the doors or windows on the ground floor in case something got in and risked the safety of the others inside. I had an idea of how we would get out, but at that time, the grounds were rather full of the creatures, and neither of us planned to get ourselves killed, so we decided to wait things out for a short while longer. It didn’t take any longer than an hour, and before we knew it, we had our opening.

Lance looked scared to leave, but he assured me that he was more concerned about the landing from the second floor if he were to slip on his way out than anything else. I understood, but there wouldn’t be a problem with that at all. I led him upstairs and into one of the lesser used classrooms that was currently empty, and flung the window open as wide as I could. There were no people around, inside, or out, making it the most perfect opportunity we were going to get to escape without being noticed and get to Lance’s apartment as quickly as they could.

He went first, handing me his bag, and carefully climbing out of the window, his legs dangling down as he hung from the windowsill in search of the next place to climb to. He found it easily in the form of a drainpipe to his left, which he shimmied over to and kept a firm grip on, then started to slowly climb his way down from. When he reached the ground, I threw his bag to him, which he caught easily, and then mine. Then, it was my turn to get out of there in a similar way. 

It was almost daunting looking down at the floor, even if it wasn’t that high up. I wasn’t exactly weak; I went to the gym with Shiro pretty much every night of the week, so I had the upper body strength I needed to carry my own weight, but this wasn’t the same as lifting weights in a controlled environment, where there was always someone around to help if you dropped something. This was me trying to get out of a second storey window and climb down to the floor without falling and potentially breaking my legs. Pushing my worries aside, I started to climb out of the window, following Lance’s steps to get to the drainpipe, and then pushing the window closed with my foot before climbing down. Hopefully, the wardens wouldn’t make a big fuss about a window being unlocked. 

“Keith are you okay?” Lance asked me in a mere whisper as I got my feet firmly back on the ground. I nodded. “You’re white as a sheet… Maybe you should sit down-“

“We don’t have time, Lance,” I told him quietly. He looked a little unsure, then handed me a bottle from my bag as I put it on my back. We had collected as many bottles of water as we could carry before we left, and I was relieved to know that he’d got the hit my body was clearly giving off, and I slowly sipped as we walked until half of the bottle was gone. I pointed ahead of us to the gates, where the wreckage of the outbreak had begun to show worse affects as it had the previous day. Lance’s eyes widened a little. “Remember, they can hear better than we can. They’re attracted to noise, so make sure you stay quiet as soon as we get out of here, okay?”

Lance nodded and walked with a little more caution, being careful where he was stepping to ensure that there was as little noise coming from our direction as possible. It was probably around midday by now, and although the streets seemed completely wrecked, it looked like many of the houses and apartment blocks in the city had managed to withstand a lot of the attacks. In a few places, the lights were turning on and off as though there was somebody living in the flats and apartments, acting as though there was nothing wrong with the outside world. Of course, there was always something wrong with the outside world – zombie apocalypse or not. 

We followed the map we had drawn, and didn’t run into any signs of life until we reached the third street. Lance kept one hand on the gun in his belt, and another firmly around the kitchen knife he had chosen from my bag to help protect himself. I noticed that he seemed to be taking notes on what I was doing, and suddenly, I felt almost proud that I was setting an example on how to survive as we made our way through the treacherous streets. One thing that I wasn’t appreciative of was the awful squeaking that his shoes were making as we were walking. If something was going to give us away to those creatures, it would be his damn shoes. 

“Lance,” I hissed quietly as he started to step closer to the sounds a disturbance in a nearby side street. He turned to look at me. “Your shoes,” 

“I can’t help it, my feet sweat when I get nervous,” He admitted. I rolled my eyes and kept up my slow steps ahead, avoiding the glass on the floor and treading carefully around what I assumed were the remains of people, although it was difficult to tell. It just looked like piles of flesh and blood, and the sight of it was making me feel even more sick as I saw it littering the streets. 

The pair of us froze as we heard two sets of footsteps behind us, and I hesitantly turned my head, expecting to find that we were being hunted by those things thanks to Lance’s shoe squeaking. Instead, the unfriendly sight of two other people greeted us. They were ordinary looking enough; a man and a woman, the man sporting an impressively large moustache and long bright orange hair, and the woman, long white hair that contrasted against her dark skin. Both, I noticed immediately, were holding guns to our heads.   
“Who are you?” The woman asked quietly, nudging the barrel of her gun into the back of my neck. I held my hands up to show that I was no threat to them, and turned to face them hesitantly. “You shouldn’t be walking around here; do you have any idea how much danger you’re putting us all in?”

“On the contrary, I’d say you’re risking more by threatening to kill some sane people with those guns, both of which have the safety on, by the way…” Lance snapped back immediately. I raised an eyebrow, impressed at his quick response. The man kept his gun trained on Lance’s shoulder, waiting for him to make a wrong move so he could shoot. “So, are you gonna kill us, or are you just threatening us to get off your land, or whatever this is?” 

“I… You were making noise.” The woman told him, lowering her gin from my face slightly. She still looked ready to shoot if she needed to, but I wasn’t planning on giving her a reason to do so. “Come with us… It isn’t safe to be out on the streets alone,” 

“But-“

“I’d try to avoid disagreeing with her,” The man warned Lance in a soft voice as he spoke, lowering his gun completely and taking his arm. He flinched slightly at the contact, but followed nonetheless. I was unsure about trusting them, but they had already shown us the decency of not shooting us where we stood, and so I was probably more comfortable with them leading us to somewhere quieter and out of the way of the streets to talk. 

And that was exactly where they took us. 

The house was rather modern looking, and although a little out of the way of where we were heading, it looked like a safe place to lie low for a while. The windows had been barricaded, and outside in the garden behind the fence, a large dog lay on the grass, chained to the wall. As they led us inside the gate, it woke, and let out a low growl in our direction, before being hushed by the man as he led us into the house. 

One thing played on my mind as the door closed behind me: was this sight going to be the last thing I saw?


	5. 5 - Trust

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 'Of course, the elevator had to be broken. 
> 
> If there was one thing I hated more than new people, it was fucking stairs. And with 10 flights on our way up to see if Hunk was still in his apartment, I knew that I would probably never make it past the 4th.'

I was on edge the whole time.

The house was well decorated; it was obvious that the two that found us were very wealthy before the outbreak, as their furniture was in pristine condition, and all looked as though it had cost them a lot of money to afford to live here. I took a quick look around as they led us through into a room with some comfortable looking armchairs and a fire in the corner of the room, not letting my guard down for a second, no matter how rich they looked. Usually, it was the rich people that were crazy enough to be serial killers in the movies. I didn’t trust them at all, which was hardly out of character.

Lance looked a little tense too, but he was far better at interacting with new people and judging whether to trust them or not than I was, and so I left it to him to explain why we were out on the streets on our own. After a short while, I started to relax a little, the two having not made any attempt to kill us yet. This didn’t mean that I trusted them in any sense, but at least now we knew their names and what their game was. The man’s name was Coran, and he had apparently worked at the same lab as Shiro. It was by chance that he had the day off the day of the outbreak. 

The woman – Allura – explained to us that her father had built the lab and half of the university that it was built inside of. Both had studied there for a while, and Coran worked in the labs quite high up until it was taken over by a family friend and he was demoted to the same level that Shiro was at. The experiments that started to take place became less about furthering medicine, but more for the good of those who ran the establishment. Apparently, it was down to those that worked on various experiments that the whole outbreak had happened in the first place. I couldn’t help but think about Shiro as she spoke about the scientists that were in the building, but I knew that mentioning that I had a brother who may have been working on the virus was probably not the best way to start. 

“Would you like anything to eat?” Allura asked us as we were sat together on a comfortable sofa with way too many scatter cushions on it. “Or a drink? We have plenty here,” I looked at Lance, almost begging him to speak for me, because I felt so uncomfortable being sat in some strange house with two people we had only just met. It was clear that he was the best at making any semblance of conversation, so I kept my mouth shut.

“Uh… Some water would be good,” He replied. She looked at me and I nodded before she walked out of the room for a moment, returning shortly afterwards with two glasses of water. It was nice to have fresh water. The stuff we’d kept in our bags was starting to go stale and it wasn’t the most pleasant thing to have to drink, even if I knew that it was only going to get worse. 

“So…” She began as she sat down in an armchair opposite us. “I hope you don’t mind me asking what you were doing out there all alone,”

Lance sipped his water and shook his head. “No, it’s okay… We left our campus to go and find my roommate… He was sick so he didn’t make it to his classes when all this happened… When places started going on lockdown, he was locked out of the building, so we wanted to go and find him and make sure he’s still… Alive,” He quickly explained to her. She nodded. 

“You realise this is much bigger than anything we’ve seen before… don’t you?” She asked as she looked out of the window. There were some footsteps, and the sound of a scream as she spoke, and I had to close my eyes for a second to try and block out the image of the girl being attacked yesterday. “We had some information on what was happening at the lab… Coran here still has the access codes to the lab since they weren’t changed after he left his initial position… So, we kept ourselves updated,” 

“Of course, it’s not something I’d expect you boys to understand… It’s advanced chemistry after all,” He added. I raised an eyebrow at him. 

“What’s that supposed to mean?” I asked him, speaking to them for the first time. He went quiet for a moment. 

“Coran merely meant that it’s not something that you’ve likely heard about… It wasn’t meant like that,” Allura assured us. I narrowed my eyes slightly and slumped back in my seat a little more. I watched Lance place his empty glass down on the coffee table in front of him and then sit back too. “What we’re trying to tell you… is that it’s unlikely that you’ll be hearing from your friend if there’s already a trace of the virus in your apartment block…”

Lance’s face dropped slightly, but he still spoke with confidence as usual. “If you mean that they’ll have bit him or something you’re wrong… Hunk’s strong, and he’s not an idiot. He’ll find a way to keep them out of the apartment until we get there,” He explained optimistically. “Besides, it’s only a few more blocks away now, and the sooner we can get to him the better, then you’ll see.” 

“I understand Lance,” She said with a soft smile. “But just know that you won’t be able to do this alone… So, I’m going to offer you some help, if you’ll accept it, that is,” Lance and I looked at each other with the same confused expression. 

“Wait… You brought us here, away from where we were heading, just so you could offer your help?” I asked. “You know that makes no sense, right? You could have let us carry on and not have to worry about us again, or just asked us out there and saved us all a load of time,” 

“I could have, but I think it would benefit all of us to stick together. Coran and I are looking for someone too, you see…” She began, reaching over to a small table, and showing a photo of a man who looked just like her. “My father was working in his lab when the outbreak happened… And he hasn’t returned home yet. I need to know if he’s alive,”

I understood immediately. She was going through the same as I was; missing a relative who probably hadn’t made it through the initial outbreak. I almost felt bad for judging her straight away as some kind of crazy psychopath, but I knew deep down that it was still entirely possible that she was exactly that. I wasn’t about to let my guard down either way, so I simply stopped speaking, putting up the same façade that I usually did to stop people from reading what I was thinking. I wasn’t about to tell her my problems to make peace.   
“So, let me get this straight… you’re asking us to help you get to the lab where all this started when we’re not even heading that way and it could get us all killed?” Lance asked in disbelief. “Do we have a choice here?”

“Of course you do,” Coran assured us. I unconsciously turned the knife in my hand to distract myself from what was happening. “But we could help you if you agree to help us,”  
Lance looked at me. “What should we do?” He asked. I shrugged. 

“Well there’s safety in numbers,” I started, sitting up a little in my seat. Lance nodded in agreement. “But we only planned on finding Hunk. Even if we did agree to help you, we’d have to insist on you helping us out first.”

“I understand, Keith. Given the situation, I think it would make more sense to find your friend first. It isn’t too far away, whereas it would take a much longer trek across the city to potentially find my father,” Allura admitted. “If you agree to help us, we will do everything we can to make sure your friend is safe.”

Lance smiled a little and nodded again, finishing his glass of water. “So, we have a deal?”

As reluctant as I was to agree to having two extra people joining us, only so I could watch their backs, it seemed like a fair deal. With the agreement in place, Coran cooked us food and we stayed with them for the evening. Allura had told us that it would make more sense to leave at night anyway, for we had discussed how we knew the creatures had very bad vision and could only just see in the daylight. We packed our things light, leaving most of our food and water behind and only taking what we were sure we would need to fight our way through the streets and get to the apartment block. After all, we planned on returning after we had found Hunk anyway, and with Allura’s dog guarding, it would be unlikely that anybody would try to break in. 

It was warm outside that night, and so I quickly abandoned my hoodie before leaving, simply securing my knife and a gun that Coran had insisted on me taking into my belt on my jeans before we left the house. Of course, in leaving one of my layers behind, I was probably going to be less protected, so I was sure to keep my wits about me and make sure that I was always looking around for any signs of danger. Of course, that’s what I kept telling myself I was doing. 

The streets were silent as we started walking. It was almost eerily quiet outside, and I wondered whether there was more danger lurking around the corners when the sun was down. I felt on edge, and kept my hand firmly on the handle of my knife just in case something jumped at me when I was least expecting it. I didn’t want to die like that girl did, and I was going to make sure that I didn’t. Not yet anyway. Allura led us all, followed by Lance, who was telling her directions, while I kept my eye on them all from the back of the group. It was a rather uneventful walk through the streets, and within an hour, we found ourselves standing across the street from the apartment block.

“This is it,” Lance told us quietly. “We live on the 10th floor… I hope you don’t mind stairs,” 

Of course, the elevator had to be broken. 

If there was one thing I hated more than new people, it was fucking stairs. And with 10 flights on our way up to see if Hunk was still in his apartment, I knew that I would probably never make it past the 4th. Luckily, my complaints under my breath had seemed to cheer Lance up a little as we made our way inside, as he had a pretty much permanent smile on his face as we started to climb the dreaded stairs to the 10th floor. The building itself seemed pretty much untouched after the 3rd floor, which was lucky, as it meant none of us had to come into close contact with the freaks that had been stalking the streets during the day. 

By the time we reached the tenth floor, I felt like I was going to pass out. Of course, I knew that I only had myself to blame for not going outside unless I absolutely had to, but I wasn’t about to admit that aloud. I watched as Lance fumbled around in his pocket for his keys and hastily pushed the key into the door to unlock it. However, as he pushed the door open, it was stopped by something behind it. 

“Hunk? You in there, man? It’s Lance,” He said through the small crack in the door. The rest of us stayed silent as we listened for any sound behind the door that would indicate whether he was inside or not. Lance furrowed his brow after a moment and knocked the door again. “Hunk. Stop fucking around now man, we’ve come to get you. Let me in,”  
There was still no response. 

The look on Lance’s face was familiar – he looked lost, just as I knew I had so many times before, and the sense of hope that was present in his features before had now faded completely. We waited, ten, twenty, forty minutes, and still, nothing. Lance resorted to slumping down against the door and tapping his fingers on his knees as he waited for some semblance of a response, and yet nothing came. Nothing happened at all. We all sat in silence as we waited for Lance to speak, for he had gone strangely quiet and the unease it set everyone in was not normal. 

Then I heard footsteps. At first, I thought I was imagining things, but as they neared closer, I felt my anxiety build in my chest and the firm grip I had kept on my knife was suddenly relevant. Lance shot to his feet and drew the gun, aiming it at the stairwell shakily and not blinking in fear of missing the vital moment that he would need to shoot. It only took a few moments for the figure to appear at the top of the stairwell.


	6. 6 - Reunited

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> '“Come and sit down,” He said, shifting over on the bean bag a little. I hesitated, causing him to roll his eyes. “It’s sharing a chair, Keith. I’m not gonna bite you, and believe it or not, this chair doesn’t eat people either.” He insisted.'

I had never been more scared in my life to say the least. With Lance’s shaky gun hand and my hands getting sweaty as I gripped my knife, I knew that the revelation of the footsteps’ owner could have ended in so many ways. If they were friendly, then they would probably be offended that Lance had a gun trained on them as they made their way up, or they’d simply back down and want no trouble because they’d be terrified. However, if they weren’t so friendly… I didn’t know if I was ready to kill something yet, and that was what was making me anxious. 

The seconds felt like hours as we waited for the face to appear; I felt my breath speed up and my vision stayed solely on the stairwell in the hope that I wouldn’t miss their face. I could feel my heart hammering against my ribcage and if it weren’t for the others being around, I knew that I would have already charged forward on impulse to attack whoever it was that was making their way upstairs. Having other people around to watch my back was helping me keep my cool to some extent. 

Lance was muttering something to himself, which was almost irritation, but it seemed to be helping him concentrate, so I resisted the urge to kick him in the shin to make him stop. The footsteps grew closer, and all of us backed into one another to try and keep ourselves as far away from the stairs as we could. The only person who didn’t look absolutely terrified of what was going to happen, was Allura, who was holding her gun perfectly still, aiming at the doors to the stairwell with her eyes narrowed, but focussed, as though she had already been in this situation before.

“… So then Lance said-“ The door opened, only to reveal the familiar face of Hunk, still looking a little sick in comparison to his usual, glowing self, but alive. Walking. “Lance!” He immediately dropped one of the bags he was carrying and ran at Lance, who had dropped the gun as soon as he realised who it was. Hunk pulled him into what looked like a bone crushing hug, and there were a few tears form both of them. I lowered the knife and relaxed, relieved that the imminent danger was not as dangerous as we first perceived it to be. 

“You’re okay… I thought-“ 

“No, I had to go and get Pidge, I didn’t realise she’d got back so soon,” He said as he let him go, turning back to the doors, where Pidge appeared with a bag slung over her shoulder. She looked different to the last time I’d seen her properly. He hair was short, and she was wearing glasses that looked a lot like her brother’s, but she definitely hadn't got taller. “She’s the reason I managed to get that text to you,” 

“Pidge you’re alive too-“ Lance ran at her and reached to hug her too, still teary eyed, only to be glared at for a moment before he reached her. “Oh, come on, we could have all been turned into zombies and even now you still won’t give me a hug?”

“Personal space, Lance.” She told him, pushing his head away from her. “But it’s good to know you’re alive, so good job for not dying I guess.” I felt myself smile a little at the sight of them being reunited again, then the realisation hit me.

Lance didn’t need me around anymore. He probably didn’t want me sticking around to get in the way now that his friends were back. Maybe this was it. Was I going to be kicked out of here right now and left to fend for myself, like I’d got so used to? I don’t think I’d ever had a real conversation with Hunk, and Pidge and I only really spoke when we had nobody else to talk to, so it was unlikely she’d even try to let me stay. I put my knife back under my belt and straightened up a little, trying not to show the worry on my face as I contemplated my next steps.

“How were you planning on getting back into the apartment? The door is stuck,” Lance asked him curiously, giving the door a shove to prove his point. Hunk looked at Pidge, who took out a remote control, and pressed a couple of buttons. After a moment, she walked over and pushed the door open with ease, revealing a robot which was around her height stood in the doorway. “You brought Rover with you, of course you brought Rover with you. I should have probably guessed,” He muttered as he walked into the apartment without hesitation, patting the robot on the head as he went past. 

We all followed, myself more hesitantly than the others, and I looked around the apartment. There were a lot of photos on the walls, which was unsurprising after hearing about what Lance had told me about his large family. A few were of Hunk and his parents, but there were so many of Lance and his siblings that it took me a while to get a look at all of them. A couple of them were clearly of a younger Lance, playing in the sea with his older siblings. I was almost fascinated at the shots, how the sun glare was caught in just the right place on the photo. They were clearly taken by someone who knew what they were doing with a camera.

The apartment was decorated in the strangest way I had ever seen. A mixture of the brightest coloured furniture and every piece of it was mismatched, leaving it looking like a jumbled mess. Even with it looking like this, it still looked like a home, and as we watched Lance collapse into the neon blue bean bag on the floor by the TV, I saw it properly for the first time since all this happened. His lips curled into a genuine smile, only small, but still completely relevant, even if it didn’t last long. 

“Let’s sit and have some food before we go back,” Lance suggested to Allura and Coran, who were starting to look a little uncomfortable being in such strange surroundings. “Sit down, the sofa might look like it, but it won’t swallow you whole,” 

It was quite funny watching Allura look so uncomfortable from just being somewhere that was simply less pristine than her own home. She was clearly used to living in luxury, and this apartment was far from it. The furniture all looked worn and battered, and there were several coffee stains on the carpet by the table which to us, looked completely normal. Allura looked almost worried about sitting down on the sofa, as though something was going to grab her and pull her between the cushions, but after a moment, she seemed to relax. Hunk walked through into the kitchen, which was visible from the living area we were all sat in, and he started to casually pull some food from the cupboards and throwing it together like he had done it a million times before. 

Where everyone else looked content with sitting around in the apartment and waiting for something to eat, I just felt awkward as I stood in the doorway, not knowing where to sit now that all the chairs with an exception of a bright yellow arm chair, which was clearly Hunk’s seat, had been occupied. Instead of being rude, I stood with my back against the wall, listening to Lance and Pidge arguing between themselves, and folded my arms over my chest, realising that it was probably a bad idea to leave my hoodie back at Allura’s house. I was freezing now we weren’t moving around. 

Pidge had started to explain to Coran exactly how she had built Rover, showing him all the functions the robot could carry out very enthusiastically. He looked completely amazed that she had even been able to get its arms to move individually, especially since he thought she was much younger than she really was. Allura got up a few minutes into their conversation to go and help Hunk with the cooking, leaving Lance and I sat in silence. I shifted my weight onto the opposite leg unconsciously, and Lance sighed. 

“Come and sit down,” He said, shifting over on the bean bag a little. I hesitated, causing him to roll his eyes. “It’s sharing a chair, Keith. I’m not gonna bite you, and believe it or not, this chair doesn’t eat people either.” He insisted. I hesitantly stood up straighter and walked over to the beanbag, perching on the edge so he still had enough room.  
“Are all the photos of your family?” I asked quietly after a moment of awkward silence. Lance nodded, looking up at the wall of photos that was opposite us. 

“Most of them I had sent over after I moved. The ones in the blue frames I took,” He told me just as quietly, pointing to a few of the frames which held photos of his younger siblings. I smiled slightly as I looked at them all. They were all well taken, and I couldn’t help but be impressed that he’d managed to get the kids to sit still for long enough for him to take the photos of them. “Y’know you don’t have to sit on the edge of the seat, there’s enough room for the two of us on here,” He muttered, grabbing the back of my shirt, and pulling it so I would sit back. 

It was as my back hit the beanbag that I realised what had happened. Lance had pulled me down to lie on the beanbag, but hadn’t moved his arm. I froze for a moment. “Lance,” I said looking straight ahead. 

“What?” 

“Your arm,” I pointed out. He shrugged and kept his arm behind my back. He didn’t exactly look uncomfortable, but it wasn’t the most comfortable thing for me to be lying straight on his arm either. “Lance, your arm is digging into my back,” 

“Okay I’ll move, jeez…” He pulled his arm from under my back and I folded my own over my chest again, trying to retain some warmth from the lack of sleeves on my shirt. “I told you to bring your hoodie,” He reminded me, a smug look on his face. 

“And I told you to keep your nose out and that I was fine, so deal with it,” I insisted as he rolled his eyes at me and stood up. “Where are you going?” I asked. 

“I’m gonna go and get changed and grab you something else to wear, you’re small so I should be able to find something-“

“I’m not small!” I argued, sitting up straight again. “And I don’t need anything-“

“Tough,” He grabbed my hand and I momentarily struggled against his grip, until I remembered that we were completely safe and there was nothing to really worry about. “Come on, I’m sure I’ve got something in my wardrobe that might make that mullet look a little more bearable,” I narrowed my eyes at him, even though he couldn’t see me.

After being dragged through the living area and into one of the doors on the right, Lance let go of my hand and started rummaging through the wardrobe on the other side of the room. This room, which I realised was Lance’s, wasn’t decorated so strangely as the rest of the apartment. The main colour scheme was, of course, blue, but looked much cosier than the rest of the place. It wasn’t a big room; there was a double bed pressed into the corner but the window, and next to it, a desk with a laptop, mirror, and lamp crammed onto it, along with a huge pile of papers that I immediately assumed was his work. The only other thing in the room was the wardrobe, which took up an entire wall opposite the bed, leaving only a small walkway around to the side of the bed and a little space to open the doors of the wardrobe itself. 

“Have a seat,” Lance gestured to the bed as he started pulling clothes from the wardrobe and throwing them behind him. I hesitantly sat down, only to have a shirt thrown straight at the side of my head. “Put that on,” 

“What-“

“Your shirt, it’s got some blood on it, so you’re gonna want to change before we leave. Plus, I don’t think we’re gonna have much chance to do laundry for a while,” He explained as he threw a few more things at me. This time, I was ready, and caught them in my right hand before they hit me. “Sorry, I don’t have anything red, so you’ll have to just deal with what I’ve got. It’s not really my colour,” 

I nodded and walked over toward the bathroom, which Lance had pointed out, to go and change. I shoved my old shirt in my bag, knowing that it would probably come in handy at some point, and pulled on the new blue and white one that he had given me. It was a little big, but I wasn’t going to turn down some clean clothes if he was offering them to me. I quickly shoved the rest of the clothes I had changed out of into my bag as I changed, then caught my reflection in the mirror on the bathroom wall. 

To put it simply. I looked like shit. My eyes were more sunken than usual, even after just a couple of days, and the dark circles under my eyes were starting to make me look deader than the creatures running around the streets, and as far as we knew, they really were dead. I took a piece of my hair in my hand and sighed. It was probably going to get in the way like this, but I didn’t have the heart to cut it. Maybe another time, I thought to myself.

That other time was to come sooner than I planned.


	7. 7 - Insecurities

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> '“I preferred the grumpy Keith who was way to defensive about his ugly ass mullet-“
> 
> “Don’t push your luck, Mcclain,” I warned, flicking his ear. He let out a small laugh. “And it’s not a mullet, I just don’t cut my hair very often,” I said in my defence. That was true. I hated having my hair cut to the point that I started to cut it myself, and I guess things never really changed.
> 
> “You still look like you’ve time jumped from the 80’s. It’s ridiculous,” He looked up and grabbed a piece of my hair, then dropped it over my face. “Maybe you should tie it up. Or are you hiding that you have a weird forehead or a dodgy hairline or something?”'

As it turned out, Hunk was an excellent chef. I was genuinely surprised when he brought out a plate of food for each of us, the food neatly placed on the plate to restaurant standard, and prepared to perfection. Although I didn’t usually like to eat much, I found myself clearing the plate before I could give it a second thought, which gained me a pride filled grin from Hunk from across the room. We ate in the same seats we had claimed before, although I had perched back on the edge of the chair so to avoid Lance’s arm and apparent need for close contact with people he had only just met. 

We filled Hunk and Pidge in about our deal with Allura and Coran, and surprisingly, they agreed that it would be better if we all stuck together. It was getting late now, the sky growing eerily darker by the second, and although we knew moving around at night would be the best idea, we eventually decided to stay the night, even though there was a significant lack of places to sleep. Pidge set Rover up to guard the door, and we secured the windows, while Lance and Hunk dragged armfuls of blankets and spare pillows into the living area for us. Allura immediately claimed half of the sofa, pulling a blanket from the pile, and setting a pillow on the arm of the chair for her to rest her head on, while Coran did the same in Hunk’s armchair. 

Pidge seemed to already have a plan for sleeping, and had almost made herself a makeshift bed out of the other side of the sofa. Luckily, she was small enough to curl up onto one of the cushions without having to disturb Allura. Lance and Hunk had already claimed their own rooms, of course, and as I looked around the room once more, I realised that the only other space was on the bean bag, which I gladly took, along with a red blanket and a pillow. Getting irritated with the longer sleeves on the shirt Lance had given me, I simply threw it off and pulled my old one back on, knowing I would probably sleep better in it anyway. As everyone got settled, I closed my eyes and made myself comfortable to sleep for the night. 

Just as I thought the night was over, maybe 2 hours after everyone had gotten to sleep, I heard something. It was still dark out when I opened my eyes in search for the source of the sound, but it didn’t sound like a threat. Someone was crying, and it sounded like it was coming from inside the apartment. 

I sat up groggily, having not been able to get to sleep at all, and looked around for a moment, my eyes still adjusting to the darkness of the room. Allura was completely out of it, curled into the back of the sofa, and Pidge was pretty much mirroring her on the other side, having not shifted from the place she had fallen asleep earlier. Coran was still snoring like he had been since he fell asleep, face pressed into the pillow to muffle the sound. I stretched my arms a little before quietly standing up out of the beanbag, being careful that I didn’t wake the others, and headed for the bathroom, only to find that the crying had gotten louder. 

It was coming from Lance’s room.

I was moving toward the door before I had the chance to think about it. After a few steps forward, I found my ear pressed against the door, only to feel a pang of guilt in my chest as I realised I was stood there listening to him cry like a complete asshole. But what else could I do? If I walked in, he could be mad, but if I were to ignore that I heard anything, I’d be mad at myself. I felt a little torn, but instead of following the moral ground, I simply walked away from the door and into the bathroom silently, turning the light on and looking at my reflection again for the second time that night. I really did look like shit; maybe it was all the stress, or maybe it was just normal and I had only just come to realise it.

When I left the bathroom after a minute or so, Lance’s door was open slightly, and I froze up momentarily as I let the most ridiculous thoughts run through my head. Had one of them got in and got to him? Could he hear me at the door? Did he want me to back off? I bit the inside of my cheek in a desperate attempt to stop my thoughts from overflowing, and as it had many times before, my attention shifted to the metallic taste of my own blood in my mouth once more instead of my musings. 

“Keith? Is that you?” Lance’s voice came in a mere whisper from the room, and I took a hesitant step toward the door, peeking in curiously. There he was, sat against the headboard of the double bed, pillows propped up against it and the wall and his sheets pulled op around his shoulders. His eyes were red and puffy in the dim light from the lamp on his desk, and his hair was a complete mess, sticking up in all directions, which wasn’t like him at all. “Did I wake you up?” His voice quivered a little as he spoke, and I shook my head in response, stepping into the doorway quietly, checking that the rest of our party were still asleep. 

“I couldn’t sleep,” I told him in a quiet whisper. He looked a little relieved and tucked his knees up to his chest, wrapping his arms around them and embracing this new protective position that seemed to calm him a little. “Are you okay?” I asked hesitantly. 

“Y-yeah… I just…” He trailed off immediately and sighed, then looked up at me again. “Can you come in? And uh… close the door… I don’t want Hunk to hear,” He looked almost ashamed of himself, and I honestly didn’t understand why. Nonetheless, I carefully opened the door enough for me to slip inside unnoticed and closed it behind me, walking across the room and sitting on the edge of the bed next to him.

“If you need someone to talk to I can listen…” I told him in a tone that was even unfamiliar to myself. “I got good at listening after years of ignoring people,” I added to try and lighten the mood a little. It worked. His lips curled into a small, sad smile and he shifted across slightly, gesturing for me to move closer. 

“You’re nothing like people said you were, y’know,” He told me quietly as I took a seat next to him with my back against the headboard silently. I raised an eyebrow at his words, and he cracked a more genuine smile. He was clearly trying to distract me from the fact I had just discovered him crying, but I wasn’t about to force a reason out of him. “Anyone that ever mentioned you said you were all sullen and hostile and you’d pick fights with anyone who got in your way,” 

I chuckled slightly. “They were right,” I confirmed, letting my head fall back onto the headboard and looking up at the ceiling. Lance looked at me, clearly a little confused. “I mean… I used to get into more fights before I came here… but in our first semester I got into a fight pretty much every day until I stopped caring about what people said to me,” I explained to him. He nodded slightly, then frowned a little. 

“I always thought you’d pick a fight with me, and yet you never did,” He didn’t look upset, more confused, and I watched as his features softened slightly and he relaxed more. “I bet you didn’t even know my name properly until you heard it the other day, did you?”

I shook my head and sighed. “Do you always put yourself down? Is it your thing, to think everyone thinks so little of you?” I asked him. He looked up at me again, this time, his eyes narrowed slightly as though I had offended him. “I knew who you were, Lance. I knew your name, I knew your classes, I knew that you were friends with Hunk and Pidge. Just because I never really spoke to you, it doesn’t mean I didn’t give a shit,” 

He seemed to freeze for a moment. “Wait… Did the Keith Kogane just admit that he gives a shit about me?” He asked sarcastically. I lightly nudged his shoulder, feeling a small smile creep onto my face. “I don’t know whether to be happy, or absolutely terrified,”

“How about you stick with both, just to be on the safe side,” I suggested. He smiled more and nodded in agreement, before adjusting one of the pillows behind his back. “But since you know I give a shit now… Just remember that you can talk to me… I might not be good at opening up to people myself, but I’m good at keeping secrets, you’d be surprised,” 

I don’t think I was expecting him to start crying again. It almost came as a shock when his eyes brimmed with tears and he let out a choked sob into the sheets, curling up a little where he sat and hiding his face in his knees. I honestly didn’t know what to do; I wasn’t a people person, and the only other time I had ever dealt with someone crying was when Shiro got upset. For all I knew, hugging him could make things worse, but not doing so could as well, and my brain kind of fogged up for a moment as I watched him cry for a moment. 

I hesitantly put my hand on his shoulder, causing him to flinch slightly. “Hey…” I spoke softly, trying to convince him that there was nothing to be afraid of, and as far as I knew, it was working. His shoulders relaxed slightly as I spoke. “Lance do you need a hug or something?”

When he hesitated, I thought I’d truly fucked up, but after a moment or two, he nodded shakily, lifting his head, and wiping his eyes with shaky hands. I carefully moved a little closer and put my arm around his shoulders, pulling him closer gently so to not make him feel more uncomfortable. He sunk down into the sheets a little, resting his head on my shoulder hesitantly, but I didn’t move away. I knew that sometimes all people need is someone to listen to them, and other times, it was just a case of knowing someone was there for them. That was something I had learned with Shiro over the years. 

“Why are you being so nice to me?” He asked after a few minutes of silence, which was only disturbed by his own sniffles and occasional weak sob into the sheets. “I don’t get it…”  
“What is there to get?” I asked curiously. 

“I just... You… You’ve only really known me for a few days,” It was strange to hear him slipping up over his own words. Especially since he was usually such a confident speaker. “People always said you didn’t trust anyone,”

“And I’ve told you, they were right…” I reminded him. “The difference now is that we have to look after each other. Who knows what could happen tomorrow, or the day after, next week… We could be stuck here for months yet. But I put my trust in you because you so easily trusted me, that’s all it came down to,” 

“This is weird…” He told me after a moment of awkward silence. “I preferred the grumpy Keith who was way to defensive about his ugly ass mullet-“

“Don’t push your luck, Mcclain,” I warned, flicking his ear. He let out a small laugh. “And it’s not a mullet, I just don’t cut my hair very often,” I said in my defence. That was true. I hated having my hair cut to the point that I started to cut it myself, and I guess things never really changed.

“You still look like you’ve time jumped from the 80’s. It’s ridiculous,” He looked up and grabbed a piece of my hair, then dropped it over my face. “Maybe you should tie it up. Or are you hiding that you have a weird forehead or a dodgy hairline or something?” I sighed and shook my head. 

“People were right about you too y’know,” I said offhandedly. 

“What’s that supposed to mean?” 

“You’re annoying, you push your luck, and sometimes I really want to hit you to make you shut up,” I stated simply. He raised an eyebrow. 

“But you haven’t hit me yet,” He reminded me. 

“Emphasis on ‘yet’,” I sighed, gaining a weak laugh from Lance as he slowly calmed down again.

After about half an hour of sitting with him, I felt my eyelids grow heavier, and as I let out my first yawn of the night, Lance sighed. I carefully moved my arm from around his shoulders and moved to get up to go back to my beanbag in the living area, but he grabbed my wrist gently before I could stand. 

“Just stay here,” He muttered sleepily. “S’warmer with you here,”

Too tired to argue with him, I pulled the sheets back and climbed into bed, drifting off as soon as my head hit the pillows.


	8. 8 - Click

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> '“Keith watch it, behind you!” Lance called as I zoned back into reality.
> 
> It seemed like I was there forever, but after a few attempts, I managed to flick the safety off and aim the gun at its temple before pulling the trigger. 
> 
> Click. 
> 
> No. No, fuck. 
> 
> I had forgotten to load the gun.'

The next morning, I woke to unfamiliar surroundings and immediately panicked. The room was different to my own, and I knew that I definitely didn’t own blue sheets. In fact, I knew that I didn’t have any of the things I could see around the room, which made me panic more. I frantically turned from where I was lying on the edge of the bed, to see another person asleep by my side. It was early, and I knew my brain wasn’t fully functioning properly yet, but I still freaked out when I saw him lying there, mouth open and snoring quietly with his face pressed into the pillow. 

I shot up out of the bed and backed against the wall, my breathing unsteady from the mild shock I had just experienced. Lance stirred a little as I moved out of the bed, pulling the sheets up to his chin to keep in the warmth, and it was only then that I realised just how cold it was. A shiver shot down my spine and I quickly folded my arms over my chest again to try and keep in some of the warmth. Maybe if I hadn’t freaked out, it would still be possible to get back into bed and have another hour of sleep.

Lance stirred again as I shivered again, and opened one eye. “What’re you doing?” He asked sleepily. I froze. “S’cold, come back,” He grumbled, pulling the sheets back a little. I hesitated for a moment before climbing back under the sheets, staying on the edge of the bed so I didn’t take up too much of his room. After a few minutes, he must have fallen back to sleep, as I heard the snoring start again, this time, not as loud, but much more irregular. I pulled the sheets under my chin and closed my eyes again, a slight feeling of unease in my gut. 

I don’t think I fully fell asleep again, it was more a case of me resting my eyes and trying to keep warm, but I felt much better rested after another hour than I had felt when I first woke up. It was around that time that I started to hear movement outside, and Lance woke up too, sitting up and rubbing his eyes. It was almost funny to see what he looked like when he first woke up; his hair stuck out all over the place, and there were dark circles under his eyes that were not there the previous day. It was like looking at a Lance from an alternate reality – a Lance who wasn’t trying his hardest to make himself look as presentable as possible. 

“Morning,” He grumbled sleepily. I sat up too after a moment and mumbled in response, then stretched my arms out in front of me, causing a little pain from my still bruised shoulder to shoot down my back. I winced slightly and let my arm hang loose for a moment, giving it a few seconds before I tried to move it again in case it started to hurt more. “I told you to let me look at that,” He reminded me. I rolled my eyes. 

“Yeah, but it’s okay,” I assured, testily moving it around again to prove my point. “The bruise will go in a few days, I’ve had worse,”

He raised an eyebrow but didn’t pry, instead, deciding to shuffle down to the edge of the bed and opening the wardrobe to find a change of clothes. “I’m gonna go and check if the water is still working, we should be able to get showers before we get back,” He muttered, grabbing a few things from the wardrobe and stumbling unsteadily over to the bathroom. I got up too, and made my way back into the living area, where I found Pidge and Coran bickering between themselves. 

“You look… well rested,” She said as she saw me walk through. I narrowed my eyes a little. “Was something wrong with that beanbag, or did you get lonely?” 

“What are you talking about?” I asked, walking over to where the discarded shirt from the previous night was lying on the floor. 

“I mean, you did just walk out of Lance’s room,” Hunk spoke up as he brought some plates through from the kitchen. “Did something happen or-“

“I have no idea what either of you are talking about,” I said honestly as I changed my shirt.

“I think we’ve found someone denser than Lance,” Hunk muttered under his breath as he handed her a plate. She snorted and I narrowed my eyes more, pulling my bag closer to my chest as I sat down on the beanbag where I admittedly should have been sleeping the previous night. In my defence, it wasn’t my idea to stay with Lance all night; in fact, I felt a little uneasy as I drifted off to sleep, knowing that there would be questions like this the following morning. 

As though on cue, Lance walked through casually to the kitchen and grabbed his food. He had changed again, into a blue and white baseball shirt and a pair of blue jeans, and his hair was somehow perfectly styled like usual, even though just half an hour earlier, I had seen it looking like a fucking bird’s nest. I rolled my eyes as he collapsed onto the sofa and started shoveling food into his mouth, almost like this was completely normal. Even after his bad night, Lance seemed to know how to get rid of the dark circles under his eyes as though they never existed, which was irritating. Surely, he was wearing makeup or something, because that was fucking impossible. 

Hunk kept casual conversation between himself, Pidge and Lance going as everybody ate, and occasionally, Allura and Coran would join, trying to delay the inevitability of us having to leave the safety of the 10th floor apartment and go back into what we had soon realised was hell outside. Although it seemed bad the previous day, the sounds outside had only seemed to grow since we’d managed to find Hunk and Pidge – or rather, they found us. I was feeling the ball of anxiety that usually lived deep in my gut putting immense pressure on my chest, and I almost tried to pull one of my excuses I used to not go to school, forgetting that this was neither the time or place to do so. 

Of course, I knew that the inevitable was about to come around, and eventually, we all found ourselves preparing ourselves to leave, a pile of empty plates next to the sink, and the rooms left in the same state as we had found them in, except for a few sets of clothes and some missing blankets that we decided to take with us. Now, all of us had a bag which we were taking with us, packed with enough supplies to last us if we did get separated. It was daunting, and I couldn’t deny that I feared what was going to happen if the worst happened and we did get separated. 

“Ready?” Coran asked us as we reached the lobby, which luckily for us, was completely void of life other than ourselves. I nodded from the back of the group, and as everyone agreed, we slowly started to make our way out of the building. 

The street outside didn’t look much different than it had the previous day, only in the light, it was easier for us to see the damage that had been done here, and there was enough damage for the street to be unrecognisable at even this point. The glass that littered the floor was our first problem, as we found that it created enough sound to be noticed by the creatures wandering around the streets. Luckily for us, we had enough people in our group that we could spread out and confuse them so much that they ended up running around in circles trying to find us. That didn’t mean that it wasn’t terrifying to see them this close. As they ran around, I caught a glimpse of what they actually looked like, and I felt my stomach churn. 

They still looked slightly human, but their skin seemed to be rotting on their bodies, and was falling apart in places, revealing exposed flesh underneath that simply looked like old tar, sticky and disgusting. Their eyes had seemed to have turned a sickly yellow colour, causing them to have bad eyesight. They were almost frosted over too, which gave them that edge that made them look more dead than they seemed. These creatures didn’t feel; they were empty, completely, and it was clear that whatever lives they had before would never be returned to them. And what a way to go… Being ripped to shreds by the shell of what once was a person, but had turned to feasting on their own kind. I shivered slightly at the thought. 

“Keith watch it, behind you!” Lance called as I zoned back into reality. I turned immediately, only to find one of them lunging for me as I stood still. I pulled the knife from my belt and started swiping it madly, trying to make it back off desperately, but as I stumbled backward, it pushed me to the floor, knocking the blade just out of my reach.

My heart was pounding as I tried to wrestle it back with all my strength, but it was only holding it far enough back that its teeth weren’t landing anywhere near my skin. From the prone position I held on the floor, I could just see the rest of our group reaching the other side of the road, and Lance being held back by Hunk as he moved to run over. I gritted my teeth as I felt the strength in my arms give out a little, and the snapping teeth moved inches closer to my shoulder. I couldn’t die now. Not like this. 

With a shaky free hand, I reached down to my belt, where the pistol Allura had given me was still in place, and grabbed it, struggling to keep the creature back with my left arm as it snarled and snapped its jaw at my face. It seemed like I was there forever, but after a few attempts, I managed to flick the safety off and aim the gun at its temple before pulling the trigger. 

Click. 

No. No, fuck. 

I had forgotten to load the gun. I let out a small, strangled cry as my arm gave way more, and then, I saw red. Flipping the gun in my hand, I used the butt to bludgeon it in the side of the head, knocking it temporarily away from me. As I scrambled back toward the blade and away from the attacking creature, I watched it with terrified eyes, trying everything I could to stop myself from showing how scared I was. For all I knew, these bastards could smell fear. It came scrambling toward me again before I was fully prepared, and I lifted my arm up to protect my face as it pounced, screwing my eyes shut. 

This time, the knife found its bed in the creature’s throat, and it gurgled as the dark crimson blood dripped down the blade and onto my hand. I was breathless as it finally went limp, and felt frozen to the spot. I shakily pushed the body aside and pulled the knife out of its throat, then pulled myself to my feet slowly. I had just killed something. Like, actually killed it. It was dead because of something I did. 

I don’t remember much of what happened for the rest of that day; hell, I barely remember the next week that went by in that hell hole we were forced to call home. It was like my brain had shut off completely, and no matter who tried to get me to eat or drink like normal again, I always responded exactly the same – a vacant, yet fearful expression which would immediately make them back away. Or, that was what Coran told me at least. 

Then, one morning I woke in my room and everything seemed better. My clothes had been changed, which I found slightly concerning as I hadn’t changed them myself, and I noticed that there wasn’t a trace of thick, dark blood in sight. The room was small, and practically empty other than a bed pressed against the wall on the left-hand side from the door and a nightstand with several bottles of fresh water on it. The wall opposite the door was almost completely glass, brightening the room significantly as the sun started to rise. Had the circumstances been different, I would have said that this was the idea morning to wake up.

I swung my legs over the side of the bed and sat up properly, rubbing my eyes in an attempt to force myself to wake up properly. It was quiet for a change, not like it had been the last few mornings I remembered waking up. Then, I could hear the snarls and low groans of the monsters outside, or on good days, the barking of Allura’s dog outside. But today, things were silent. No scary sounds, no comforting barking, not even the idle chatter of someone walking outside my room. For a while, I sat and wondered if I had gone deaf, for the lack of noise in the room was almost impossible. 

Then he knocked, and my senses returned to me properly.


	9. 9 - Shock

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> '“Do you remember when Hunk brought you food yesterday?” He asked me. I nodded, thinking back to eating the rations that he had brought in with him when he came to check on me. “And what about Pidge coming in two days ago to bring you water?”
> 
> “I remember, Lance… Just not everything,” I admitted. He frowned slightly. “Like, I have no idea how I got out of my clothes,” 
> 
> “Oh… That was me-“'

“Keith? You okay man?” Lance’s voice called quietly from outside the door. I looked up, blinking a few times to try and register what was happening properly, as my eyes were still adjusting to the light of the room. I stood up uneasily, having not done so properly for a week, and hobbled over toward the door. Lance almost looked different, like it had been years since I’d seen him, because it really did feel like that long since I’d seen anybody without them trying to force feed me. “Wow… You look-“

“Like shit?” I finished, my voice gravelly from sleep and the lack of talking that I had done in the last few days. “Yeah, I know,” 

“Can I come in?” He asked. I nodded a little and stepped aside, letting him walk into the practically empty room before closing the door behind me. “So… You feeling any better?”

I shrugged, pulling my hair back out of my face. “Define better,” He chuckled slightly. “Was I out for long?”

Lance looked at the floor, hesitating a little. “You don’t remember what happened, do you?” I furrowed my brow in confusion. 

“I zoned out and got attacked by a fucking zombie,” I said in an almost questioning tone. “Forgot to load the gun… there was blood though… it smelt bad,” I reluctantly reminisced, still able to recall the scent that left the fresh wound on the monster’s throat as it went limp. 

Lance paced slightly. He had changed his clothes again since I last saw him; this time, a dark green hoodie was slung around his waist and there were marks on the white shirt that he wore that looked too much like dried blood for me to think anything else of them. “Do you remember when Hunk brought you food yesterday?” He asked me. I nodded, thinking back to eating the rations that he had brought in with him when he came to check on me. “And what about Pidge coming in two days ago to bring you water?”

“I remember, Lance… Just not everything,” I admitted. He frowned slightly. “Like, I have no idea how I got out of my clothes,” 

“Oh… That was me-“ He started. I raised an eyebrow as he spoke and his eyes widened slightly. “N-not like that! Jeez, you were covered in blood and Hunk was trying to ration food, and Allura had to go on watch and Coran was busy studying samples and then Pidge really didn’t want to see-“

“Lance calm down,” I said, putting my hand on his shoulder. He stopped talking immediately. “Thank you… I appreciate it. I didn’t really want to be sleeping in bloody clothes anyway,” I smiled slightly as I spoke, and his shoulders relaxed. 

“To be honest I thought you’d punch me or try and cut me with your freaky knife collection or some shit,” He joked, drawing a weak laugh from me. “But I’m glad you’re feeling yourself again… A lot has happened while you’ve been out,” 

Lance was right. A lot had happened. 

With the virus – as it had been confirmed – spreading at a rapid rate, surrounding states had also gone on lockdown, and borders around the city had been established with the formation of reinforced electrical fences which were guarded by the military. Anybody who got too close had been shot down so far, which wasn’t exactly putting much faith in anybody’s mind about us being rescued any time soon. Radio stations had also been established on emergency frequencies to help survivors contact each other from across the state if they needed rescuing or provisions. 

Allura had apparently had no luck so far in finding her father, but Pidge had been assisting her in tracking radio signals from any working phones in the area. It was lucky really, for Pidge had hacked into more systems while we were in school than I thought was possible. She would do so to change our attendance, and make sure that our grades were always as high as possible without things looking too suspicious. I silently thanked whoever it was that made sure that Pidge and I were friends, and for whatever force made sure that she found us safely. I knew that Matt would have killed me if he found out she wasn’t safe. 

“Lance did you get- KEITH YOU’RE ALIVE!” Pidge ran at me from the doorway and jumped at me. If anything, it was more of a surprise than anything. Pidge had a thing for her personal space, so a hug was the last thing I was expecting. Apparently, my half-conscious state over the last week had caused some issues of hers to break down, and it was comforting to some extent, knowing that she cared enough to be worried about me. In another sense, it was freaky – Physical contact freaked me out too, and having a small human dive at me from across the room was probably one of the worst things that could happen on a normal day. 

“Hold up – why does Keith get a hug and I don’t?!” Lance whined annoyingly. I rolled my eyes. 

“Because Keith, unlike you, doesn’t crave constant attention, and now he needs it. So stop your complaining,” She told him. He faked looking offended and placed a hand on his chest, causing Pidge to snort and kick his shin. “And I’ve been friends with Keith longer,”

Lance’s eyes widened a little. “Since when?!”

“Since we were… What – 12?” I asked her. She shrugged. “Must have been, that’s when I moved in with Shiro’s family,” 

“You’re telling me you’ve known Keith fucking Kogane for nearly 8 years and you didn’t think to tell me?!” Lance seemed completely shocked at the revelation. I blinked slowly, not realising that this was going to be so important to him. “Pidge, how could you!” 

“Will you chill out? I was allowed to have friends before I met your annoying ass, Lance.” She joked. “And at least Keith gets the conspiracy theories-“

“FUCK NO WHY?!” He tugged at his own hair and I found myself laughing more than I had laughed in months. As much as it hurt my ribs, it felt right to be laughing again, even if it was in these circumstances. “Keith, my man… You need to see a doctor or something if you believe the gremlin-“

“It was actually me that got Pidge into the conspiracy theories,” I added, causing him to fall further into his pit of frustration. 

It took us a few days to get back to some kind of normality, and in that time, I found that we fell into a kind of routine. Everyone seemed to wake up at around the same time in the morning, so Hunk would cook us breakfast out of the small number of rations that we had, and we would eat in a reasonable silence as we all properly woke up from our restless sleep. After breakfast, we would draw straws – literally – on who would go on patrol outside first. It was decided that the fairest way was to pick someone at random every day so that we all had an even chance of survival. On the first day, Coran and Hunk patrolled. On the second, Pidge and Coran were chosen, and the third, I was chosen, along with the least useful of the group for a job that required us to be quiet – Lance. 

Equipped with a gun – which I made sure I had loaded this time – and several knives which I had managed to attach to the inside of my leather jacket that I had found on a ration run the previous day. Lance no longer carried the pistol I had given him back on campus; he had upgraded to an automatic rifle that belonged to Coran, which he assured me, he was a much better shot with anyway. The guns were merely a last resort at any rate. Shooting caused too much noise and that would only attract more monsters than we already had to deal with. I still felt a little on edge as we patrolled, spotting them roaming around the buildings across the street even though they could not see us with their low visibility. Images of the last time I was outside flashed in my mind and I felt my breathing pick up, but Lance somehow managed to ground me but simply placing a reassuring hand on my shoulder. 

The plan was to draw them away from the house. It was simple enough; find some bricks or glass bottles and throw them in the opposite direction to draw their attention further away. In hindsight, I should have known that this was never the best idea, for the noise had to have come from somewhere, and apparently, these freaks were smarter than we gave them credit for. 

So, there I was again, running for my life with a gun in my hand, heart hammering against my chest as I sprinted down the streets and down the now familiar side streets to try and evade the capture of the monsters that I knew would one day tear me apart. I lost sight of Lance as I jumped up onto one of the bins around the back of a nightclub to try and climb up onto the roof, which I was able to do with thanks to the time I had spent lifting my body weight when trying to get out of tricky situations before. 

The clawing hands grabbed at my ankle just as I managed to scramble up onto the roof, and I only just made it up before they could pull me back down onto the floor. I watched as they started to climb too, although clumsy, they were still managing to climb up, even if it was much slower than I had made it up here. I couldn’t find the strength in my legs to get to my feet, so instead, I just shuffled backward until I hit the wall, and tried to calm my breathing as I pulled the gun from my belt for the second time in a week. 

It was heavy in my hands, heavier than it felt the last time I had held it like this as it was now fully loaded, and I was shaking, which I knew would not help with my aim when they eventually made it to the roof and I had to shoot at them to protect myself. I hated that I was so afraid. I was never this scared, and it was pushing me into unknown waters that made me even more uncertain about what could happen. Instead of overthinking what was happening this time, I snapped away from my thoughts and focussed on the real world for a moment. 

A hand; a grotesque, bloody hand. Then another. And soon after it, the vacant expression that would forever haunt my dreams. My grip tightened around the handle of the gun and my finger hovered over the trigger shakily as I aimed the barrel as best as I could at the monster’s head. The noise was almost deafening, yet my finger still hovered about a centimetre away from the trigger, too hesitant to do anything. As my vision focussed on the edge of the roof again, I could see the exit wound through the forehead of the monster just before it slid back down off the roof. 

Someone else had got it. 

Someone had just saved my life and I had no idea who it was. I looked around at the surrounding roofs quickly before turning the safety on the gun and shoving it back into my jeans, instead, taking my knife from the inside of my jacket, as it was much lighter in my hands and I knew what I was doing with it. I slowly crawled to the edge again, only to see four others on the floor, reaching up desperately to reach the only thing with a real pulse in the vicinity. As one managed to get a grip on the edge and pill itself up, I did the first thing that came to mind, and plunged the knife through the top of its head. It took a few tries, but after the third strike to the brain, it collapsed back down onto the floor with the first corpse.

I felt a sense of accomplishment, as bad as it sounds, for simply finding the courage to defend myself. As the others managed to climb up, I cut them down much easier, starting to figure out where they had weak spots that made things quicker for me to get them away from me. As the last one made its way up, I spotted it. The back of its neck was exposed, and I waited for perhaps too long for it to get within my reach, before plunging the blade through the area its spine connected to its skull. It went limp immediately.   
I sat back on the roof properly, slightly breathless, and calmed down for a moment before looking around on the other rooftops for the mystery marksman that had fired that first shot. The nightclub roof was significantly lower than the surrounding buildings, so I had to squint to see some of them, and that was when I saw the figure on the opposite roof, gun rested on their shoulder triumphantly and a foot resting on the edge of the roof as they looked down at me. I looked up more carefully, and my eyes widened. 

Lance smiled down at me with that shit eating grin that I hated to say I was getting used to.


	10. 10 - Thanks

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> '“No, you know what? Fuck you Keith. Fuck you.” He said, shoving me out of the way as he moved past me to go back inside. I stumbled backwards and fell back onto the floor, but didn’t get back up for a moment.
> 
> This was my life now. And it fucking sucked.'

I didn’t expect it to say the least.

When I lost sight of Lance during the chase, I thought for sure I’d not make it back to him in time. I was sure that one of us would have gotten lost or… worse… But there was no question about it. The person stood on the roof was Lance; gun propped on his shoulder like he had done all of this thousands of times before, a proud smile on his face, and a stance that just radiated the confidence that he always showed. I blinked a few times to make sure I wasn’t just seeing things, but my eyes had never failed me before. 

After quickly checking over the streets below, I climbed down from the roof and headed over to where he was, only to find him sat propped up against the wall down a quiet side street, reloading the gun he had just fired. I rushed over immediately, relieved to see that there were no scratches on him. Lance was okay, and so was I. We had survived it all of that, and I had come to realise that I wasn’t as scared of what we were trying to fight against anymore. Because somebody had my back.

“Nice to see you made it out of there alive, Kogane,” He said in a chirpy voice. I rolled my eyes, securing my knife back in my belt. “I only, y’know, saved your life and all… But there’s no need to thank me,” He slipped the gun back onto his back and adjusted his jacket so it was more comfortable. 

“I was getting to it,” I argued, helping him to his feet. “Really, thank you, Lance. I’m glad you didn’t let me die,” He smiled and put his hand on my shoulder. 

“Yeah, well I hope you’d do the same for me, Mullet,” I rolled my eyes again. Why did he have to be so irritating? “We should head back before the others worry too much. At least we can tell them there’s 4 less zombies on the streets now,” 

I guess that was a start. 

We headed back slowly, only having one other encounter with them as it started to get dark, which was quickly and abruptly ended with my knife lodged in the back of its neck. Lance watched my back while I scouted ahead, and we picked up a few supplies that we found in the surrounding area to take back to the base. At dusk, we received a radio signal from Pidge asking if we were okay, and decided that it would be the best time to head back before we got attacked again. 

By this point, the streets were pretty empty, and we didn’t encounter anybody else until we approached the gates of Allura’s house, where we found Pidge waiting outside. She ran over to make sure we were okay before practically dragging the two of us back inside and locking the door. Her grip around my arm was almost painful, and I was sure there would be a bruise in the form of her fingertips when she finally let us go. It wasn’t meant to be malicious; she had clearly been worried that we weren’t going to come back. And apparently, so was Hunk, who rushed through immediately as we were thrown down onto the sofa, and forced some rations into our hands as he started checking us over again. 

“You could have called and told us that you ran into trouble,” He insisted after we explained ourselves. “We really thought-“

“Yes, we thought. But you’re back, and if you’re still breathing then you’re still in the draw for tomorrow’s patrol,” Allura interjected as she walked through, a fully functioning tablet in her hand. I still didn’t understand how she had managed to ensure we still had running water and electricity here, but everywhere else seemed to be running out very quickly. Even the street lights weren’t turning on at night now, which was both a good thing, and an advantage for us if we wanted to move around without being seen. 

Allura wasn’t joking either. We spent the next three weeks alternating our patrols and trying to find any leads about her father in the hope that some answers to all of our questions would appear with him. It was hell, and I started to notice that the longer I spent running away from the bastards outside, the less I cared about killing. It was scary, and yet learning to throw a knife and hit something between the eyes gave me such a rush that I got used to the feeling of guilt that came from knowing I had just killed someone. I figured that whoever it was, once had a life, but now they were just a shell, and inside that shell was a monster that was trying to ruin the lives of every functioning human in the city. In theory, what I was doing was right. 

Lance somehow got to be a better shot in those three weeks, and with the discovery of a brand-new sniper rifle that I had come across during one of my patrols with Hunk, he had started picking them off at a distance from the roof while we patrolled. He seemed happy, even if there was a hint of sadness behind his confidence, and that was fine with the rest of us. While Lance and I made a conscious effort to lower the amount of zombies roaming the streets, Pidge used the questionable skills she had picked up over the years to try and hack into the lab security feeds and see what had happened to cause the virus to leak. It was the only thing we could try other than actually going into the lab and looking for an answer ourselves, which would have been way too dangerous considering our lack of knowledge about this virus.

For all we knew, this thing could be airborne, although it was very unlikely. From what we had seen so far, it took a blood transfer to pass the virus on, or a bite to the shoulder, which Pidge told us would allow saliva to pass into the blood stream and pass the virus on easily. That was worrying, but we knew that as long as we could avoid their teeth, then we would be relatively safe. Of course, we still had to consider that they had other ways of getting to us, as I found out while watching a small group of survivors fighting them in the streets one night from the roof. 

There were four of them, all dressed in torn clothes that made it seem like they had been through quite a lot in their efforts to survive. There was a small crowd following them, all with the same vacant expressions and dead eyes, and all murderous. There was a scream, and one was wrestled to the floor. I felt myself stand to run and help, after all, they were just outside, but before I could take my eyes off them, a man tore the creature off the girl and violently stabbed it in the back of the neck. I sat back down again, picking the scope of Lance’s gun that he had left on the roof to get a closer look at them. 

The man had a look in his eyes that simply said he would give no mercy. His hair was long, and tied back out of his face, with an exception of a small strand which fell over his face. He was the only person among these survivors who had clearly thought about what he was wearing; a thick jacket that covered his arms enough to protect them from the creatures’ teeth, and trousers that would allow him to move around properly. Now that he had arrived to help the four girls that were initially running away, the five of them started working together to fight the crowd back. There was shouting between them as they fought, but none of them seemed to get even slightly hurt. 

“What’s going on?” Lance asked as he appeared in my peripheral after a moment of me watching the fighting. I handed him the scope and pointed silently, which he took and looked through without question. “Fuck, they look like they know what they’re doing,” 

“I guess they’re lucky, the guy looks like he’s been killing people for years anyway, have you seen how he’s fighting? It’s fucking merciless,” I said quietly, almost in disbelief as I continued to watch the group fight without the scope. Lance smirked. “What?”

“The way you talk about him makes me wonder if you know him,” He said simply, glancing at me briefly before continuing to look down the scope. 

“What’s that supposed to mean?” I asked, turning to look at him. He smirked again and handed the scope back. 

“You’re oddly complimentary to him, for someone you don’t know. It’s weird. It took you weeks to remind me I was a great shot,” He teased suggestively. I felt my face heat up. 

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” I insisted.

“Then why are you blushing, Mullet?”

I don’t know why I snapped. 

But I fucking punched him. 

Luckily, I didn’t punch with my left hand. That would have sent him flying over the edge and I would have had to live with the guilt of punching Lance Mcclain so fucking hard he fell from the roof to his death. Instead, he toppled over and collapsed to the floor by my side, a hand over his nose, which was now bleeding. He looked up at me, shock present in his dumb eyes, and started babbling in Spanish, mopping the blood up with his shirt carefully. My fists were still clenched, and I just felt angry. I had no idea what was happening, but I just wanted to keep punching the asshole. 

“Dude what the fuck?!” He yelled, loud enough that Pidge and Hunk soon rushed up to the roof to see what was happening. Hunk checked his nose, then glared at me.   
“Keith what the hell did you do?” He asked in what I thought was the angriest tone I had ever heard from Hunk. I closed my eyes and took a few deep breaths to calm myself, before looking down at my hand, which I noticed now had Lance’s blood on it. I quickly wiped my knuckles on my shirt. 

“What the fuck happened?” Pidge asked. Lance sat against the wall and groaned as he moved his hands away from his face. His nose wasn’t broken, but I’d done enough damage that it hadn’t stopped bleeding.

“Keith got all defensive about a crush and then he fucking punched me,” He spat, glaring at me. Had I not been in control of my actions at that moment, I would have launched myself at him and hit him again. “Seriously man, what the hell?! I was only fucking joking-“

“I’m sorry-“

“No, you know what? Fuck you Keith. Fuck you.” He said, shoving me out of the way as he moved past me to go back inside. I stumbled backwards and fell back onto the floor, but didn’t get back up for a moment. It was only when I saw Hunk and Pidge leave after him that I felt it, deep down in my gut. 

I fucked up. I see that now. At the time, it seemed like such a good idea, and yet it got me absolutely nowhere.

The next morning, I woke early, before sunrise, before anybody was supposed to be awake. I packed my things into my bag, leaving the clothes Lance had given me folded neatly on the end of my bed, and secured my knife and gun in my belt before quietly making my way downstairs. I thought nobody would be awake considering the hour. I thought wrong. 

“Keith?” Coran’s voice made me jump as I reached for the door handle, and I slowly turned, withdrawing my hand. “Are you going out already? Someone’s eager today. Hunk hasn’t even made the provisions yet-“

“I uh… I won’t be needing any, Coran,” I said quietly. He furrowed his brow in confusion. “I’m leaving… The others won’t want me here by the morning, and I don’t want to stay here if I’m going to be more of an outsider than I already was,” 

His face dropped. “… You really want to leave?” He asked, almost in disbelief. I hesitantly nodded and he frowned. “I take it you didn’t want to say goodbye to your friends before you left.” I winced slightly at his use of that word. 

“They aren’t my friends. They never were,” I snapped, closing my eyes. “Besides, nobody will miss me. I’m the loner, remember?” I reminded him of a conversation I had overheard between the five of them just a few nights earlier. 

“You know that isn’t what we meant Keith-“

“I don’t want to hear it,” I said finally, unlocking the door, and throwing my key on the floor by his feet. “Tell Lance his shit is on my bed.” I added as I closed the door behind. In hindsight, it was probably the worst decision I could have made, leaving them. I thought I could handle myself, but apparently, I relied on them a lot more than I thought I did, and within just a few hours, I found myself running for my life again.

“Hey, freak,” A sickeningly familiar voice called as I slowly came to consciousness one morning. “Lotor said you’re on patrol of the camp today, so get up.”

“Fine, now get out of my room, Acxa.” I snapped back, pulling my blanket back over my head to dull the sunlight that had started pouring in through the broken window. 

This was my life now. And it fucking sucked.


	11. 11 - Traitor

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 'She was just as she usually was, cocky and bubbly, and in all seriousness, completely annoying. 
> 
> And she reminded me of Lance. 
> 
> “Do you think the pigeons have feelings?” She asked randomly as we walked, looking up at the birds that were perched on the roofs of the houses around us. I sighed. “What? I was just trying to lighten the mood, you’re pretty boring,”
> 
> “Maybe I just don’t appreciate you constantly talking while I’m trying to think,” I muttered under my breath.'

Every day was different with the Galra. That was what they called themselves anyway. It wasn’t fun, it wasn’t safe, and most of all, it wasn’t pleasant. The first month of the virus being in the air was almost a luxury, even if we had to survive on rations of food that came from tins. With Lotor and his gang, we didn’t even have a permanent place to sleep, and some nights, we didn’t sleep at all. What I hated the most was how I somehow managed to fit in with them. It was like I belonged here, no matter how much I wanted to argue with that fact, I just knew that it was true. 

Acxa was probably the only one of them I spoke to without a mental complaint. She shared the same hatred I had for the majority of the world, and because of that, and us having to work together a lot, we became close to what I might consider friends. Of course, none of this was to gain friends, so I avoided that word like it was the fucking plague. They were more acquaintances than anything, and that was a much more comfortable way of putting things. 

Their leader was as strong a fighter as I had ever seen, and it was a little intimidating to have to speak to him after watching him fight from the roof. Besides, Lotor was a fucking psychopath, and had taken the city’s apocalyptic state as a chance to go around killing people for fun. Although he couldn’t see it, his closest followers, who I had unintentionally joined, even had doubts about the way he was approaching this in terms of survival. But he gave us shelter and whatever food we could collect in return for loyalty, which in my opinion, was a pretty fair deal. 

It had been about 2 months since I left the others now, and I had finally started to accept that there was probably no way in hell that we would be rescued from this shit heap. Buildings were abandoned, and the small number of survivors that remained in the city had turned savage due to the lack of food. It was a dangerous world to live in, and yet the Galra seemed to just carry on as though there weren’t evil monsters roaming the streets trying to chew on your flesh. It was fucking crazy, but it gave me a little confidence to know that I wasn’t the only one who wasn’t bothered by killing anymore. If anything, I was probably the most opposed to doing so while I was with them. 

Recently, my days had been the same. I’d wake up to Acxa barking an order at me, moan about getting up so early, pull on my jacket and force myself to eat the terrible rations we were given each morning, and then immediately take my knife from my belt. The day’s killing started at dawn, and ended at dusk, so I always had plenty of time to improve my shot with my throwing knives that I kept stashed on the inside lining of my jacket. As for the gun, I rarely used it. It was a last resort, and much less fun to kill with in comparison to the blade that I had held in my hand for as long as I could remember. And it brought back memories I would much rather forget about. Memories that made me doubt who I was now.

The group I unintentionally joined helped me to survive, and that was the only reason I stayed with them. I wasn’t attached to any of them at all – in fact, they were perfectly expendable and I would willingly throw them in front of the bus if it meant keeping me alive. The same could be said for the others. Although we worked together generally, the rule was that it was every man for himself, and I had witnessed Lotor himself do just that. I couldn’t deny that I did fear that one day, it would be that was thrown in front of someone, and it would be that was torn apart in the place of another member of the group to save their life. But I couldn’t think like that now. Surviving was important, but I knew that in the back of my mind that I had a secondary goal that I hadn’t told anybody. 

In the time I had been with the Galra, I had managed to get several leads on where Shiro was, and I knew now that he was, in fact, still alive. Lotor’s father had worked in the same lab that Shiro and Matt were scheduled to work in on the day of the outbreak, and while that worried me, it also more of an incentive to get up and actually try and find him. As our daily tasks weren’t as important as they were when I was still with the others, I often found myself trying to clear a route to the lab in the hope that I would find him camped outside with Matt, and that I’d be able to see that he was okay. 

So that was what was happening today. Unfortunately, I had been paired with Ezor today, who although talkative and generally cheerful, was extremely loyal to Lotor, and would probably have me killed if I told her I was trying to find someone so I could abandon the group. Instead, I told her that I suspected there could be a cure inside the lab, and that Lotor would be interested in looking into it if we could clear a path through the wreckage so the trip wouldn’t be as treacherous. Luckily, she didn’t question me as we headed out into the now empty streets around our temporary camp. She was just as she usually was, cocky and bubbly, and in all seriousness, completely annoying. 

And she reminded me of Lance. 

“Do you think the pigeons have feelings?” She asked randomly as we walked, looking up at the birds that were perched on the roofs of the houses around us. I sighed. “What? I was just trying to lighten the mood, you’re pretty boring,”

“Maybe I just don’t appreciate you constantly talking while I’m trying to think,” I muttered under my breath. She didn’t seem to hear me. 

“You didn’t answer my question,” She slapped my arm. I ignored her again, trying to listen around me to see if we really were the only ones on the street. In the brief moment of silence, I heard some shouting. 

“I know, now shut up, there’s something just up the street,” I told her as I ducked into one of the side streets with my back pressed to the wall, just peeking around the corner so that I would be able to see if there was any imminent danger. Ezor did the same on the opposite side of the street, trying to avoid being seen as best as she could despite her terrible choice of clothes that she had picked out to wear on a mission that was supposed to end in us actually returning to the camp, not being spotted for wearing all fluorescent clothing. 

The dull groans of the monsters were all too familiar by this point, and didn’t even remotely scare me like they once had. What was concerning, was the gunshots, and shouting between what sounded like a group or people. I tried to listen in as best as I could, but from the distance we were away from them, it wasn’t easy to hear what was going on. They seemed to be struggling to fight them off, and I initially thought about looking around a little more for some way to try and help them. It was Ezor’s glare from across the street that made me think again though, as we both know the rules on helping other survivors. Lotor didn’t like that at all, and it would probably end in both of us being killed. 

The voices slowly drew closer, and the loud cry of what sounded like an older man echoed through the practically empty streets, sending shivers down my spine. I sat tight, my hand secure around my knife and ready for an attack, and listened carefully. The groaning from the beasts had stopped now. In its place was the chilling sound of screaming; the screams of a man who was about to die. I had heard this sound only twice before. The first time, I had been lucky and escaped as the girl on the floor below me was ripped apart, and the second, we had lost a companion. This time, it seemed so much more personal, and I couldn’t understand why. 

“Coran!” 

I froze. 

Was this them? Could they really be here? I had travelled across the city with the Galra by now… How had they possibly got here? There was no questioning it. The voice was definitely Allura’s, and with this confirmed in my mind, I started to hear the others. Pidge was calling for backup through what I assumed was a radio in their- wait… They had a truck now? Hunk was half seated in the driver’s seat, a baseball bat on his shoulder ready to attack if something deadly came close. I couldn’t believe it. They were really there, within reach. 

“Someone stop them!” Allura screamed again as she ran past where I was hiding. I felt my stomach drop. Who were they attacking? As I moved to get up to help, I saw more movement from across the street, and I froze again. 

I didn’t even hesitate. I pulled the gun from my belt and aimed carefully but quickly. It was just another life anyway, none of my business if they survived. 

So I pulled the trigger, the bullet finding its bed between Ezor’s eyes. I felt absolutely no remorse, but the gun shot had given me away. I watched as the group of monsters that were attacking one of the group’s allies turned their attention to me instead. I felt a smile creep onto my face as they started to charge, and a surge of adrenaline filled my bloodstream as I pulled my hood up and took a second knife from the inside of my jacket.

There must have been about 8 of them, or that was what I counted, anyway. I didn’t really care about the number I had killed, only that me killing them would mean that there were a few less of these bastards roaming the streets. Blade carved deep into rotten flesh, but all I saw was red. Red as I lunged forward and plunged the blade into keck after neck, with the efficiency of a whole group of survivors. I didn’t care who was watching, nor did I care about who the people that I was killing were before the virus. I just needed to end them, to pay them back for what I’d done. 

As the last body hit the floor, I straightened up and took a deep breath before wiping the blades on my jeans to clean off the blood. The streets were silent again, with the exception of someone crying. I turned my head in the direction of the sound, only to see Allura knelt on the floor over a body – well… what was left of a body. I kept my hood up as I walked over slowly, putting my weapons away as I moved closer. I felt my face drop, and my stomach churn at the sight before me. 

“No…” Allura sobbed as she covered her face. I closed my eyes for a moment, not wanting to look at the mess of body parts that was once a person. 

Coran was dead. 

I didn’t speak. I couldn’t speak. I felt so guilty for something that really wasn’t my fault, and yet I knew deep down that I could have probably stopped this if I hadn’t been told to stay back. The footsteps behind me had only just started to register in my mind, and I felt my whole body freeze up as Pidge and Hunk rushed to Allura’s side. They didn’t seem to even notice I was stood there, or they chose not to acknowledge me. Either way, it made my stomach churn and my chest tighten a little. 

“He’s gone…” Hunk’s voice sounded broken, and it hurt to hear someone who was usually so cheerful sound so upset. I closed my eyes again and took a few deep breaths. This world was cruel. Too cruel for Hunk, and too cruel for Pidge and Allura. They didn’t deserve to have to go through this. They had just lost one of their friends, and I felt fucking awful. 

“… What’s he doing here?” A familiar voice snapped. I flinched. “Coran is dead and he suddenly thinks everything is perfectly fine?”

I turned slowly, and a flood of relief washed over me. Although he was angry, and clearly didn’t want me around, seeing Lance alive and walking, albeit much scruffier than he was the last time I saw him, made what seemed like a physical weight lift straight off my shoulders. His hair had grown out a little more, and fell messily over his face, and there was a scar across his cheek that wasn’t there the last time I saw him. He looked so different to how he looked before all of this happened, and yet there was still some part of the old Lance present in his features. 

The only difference now, was the gun that he once used to saved my life, was now aimed straight at my head.


	12. 12 - Reconciliation

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> '“I’m sorry I was an impulsive bastard, I’m sorry you thought I was worth saving, I’m so fucking sorry that I made you think I was important to you,” I rushed, a dull ache in my chest growing as the words poured out of my mouth as easily as water. 
> 
> Lance frowned slightly. “Keith, you were important to us-“
> 
> “No I wasn’t.” I said simply. “I’m not important. I get that. In the end, none of this is going to matter anyway. You’ll go your way, and I’ll have to go mine. I’m truly sorry for your loss, Lance, but I know how to take a hint,”'

I thought I was stupid to think they would want me back. 

Lance had changed, not necessarily in a bad way, but it was clear that they had all been through so much in the last three months that they didn’t know who they could or couldn’t trust anymore. I felt my heart sink a little as I watched them gather around Coran’s body and mourn the loss of one of their companions, while completely ignoring my existence. I took a deep breath and walked over to the side street where I knew Ezor’s body would still be, and I carefully covered the wound with some cloth before picking her up and lying her down in the street and paying my respects, whether I was within my rights to do so or not. I had done this to her, and she didn’t deserve it. I tried to ignore the others as I carefully searched her body for any spare ammunition, and then closed my eyes. 

It was silent for a moment, and then I heard footsteps. I didn’t look up, because I knew that doing so would probably just end in whoever it was gloating. Instead, I took Ezor’s hand and kept my eyes closed, my head bowed in a false state of respect. I opened my eyes after a while and looked to my right, where I saw Lance knelt next to me. I immediately averted my eyes and tried to pretend he wasn’t there. It didn’t work, of course, It never did. 

“I’m sorry,” He said quietly, in a voice I recognised. Perhaps the Lance I knew had not completely disappeared. “Clearly we aren’t the only ones to have lost someone today… I’m sorry it had to happen this way,” 

I shook my head and gently laid her hand down on her stomach. “It’s okay, Lance. We left our camp knowing that there was a risk. She just didn’t realise I was the risk,” I told him quietly, suddenly feeling dreadfully guilty for what I had done. Deep down, I knew that Ezor was just scared, and Lotor had provided her with the protection she needed. She was, understandably, extremely grateful for what he had done, and her loyalty was simply down to her wanting to pay him back for keeping her safe. 

“You killed her?” He asked, a little confused. I nodded sadly. “Why?” 

“Because she would have had me killed if she saw me helping you,” I muttered, pulling my hood more securely around my face. There was a moment of silence between the two of us before Lance stood. “I know it probably means jack shjt right now, but for all it’s worth, I’m really sorry,” I told him in a quiet voice, half hoping he wouldn’t hear me so this would be easier. 

He stopped as I thought he was about to walk away, and I felt his gaze burning into the back of my skull. “Sorry?” He asked, confused. “You’re sorry for what? Punching me in the face? Leaving us when we needed you? Do you even know how much shit we’ve been through in the last few months, Keith? It’s been hell…” 

I swallowed, closing my eyes once more and trying to keep myself calm. Of course, I had no idea what they had been through, and I really hoped that they hadn’t seen some of the things I had. My mind was strong enough to deal with it; I had seen things in life before the outbreak that most would find traumatic, and yet here I was, not even remotely scared of the sight of blood, not worried about killing to survive. I wasn’t sure if they were, but I knew they were strong. If they had seen what I had, I would have expected them to crumble much sooner than this.

“I’m sorry for everything,” I told him, turning to face him properly for the first time as I got to my feet. “I’m sorry I was an impulsive bastard, I’m sorry you thought I was worth saving, I’m so fucking sorry that I made you think I was important to you,” I rushed, a dull ache in my chest growing as the words poured out of my mouth as easily as water. 

Lance frowned slightly. “Keith, you were important to us-“

“No I wasn’t.” I said simply. “I’m not important. I get that. In the end, none of this is going to matter anyway. You’ll go your way, and I’ll have to go mine. I’m truly sorry for your loss, Lance, but I know how to take a hint,” And with that, I picked Ezor’s body up and started to walk away, leaving Lance stood, mouth open in confusion, in the middle of the street. 

I didn’t get far. 

I was only two streets away when I heard the sound of an engine, and a car door slam shut. Although reluctant, I looked back to see Allura, her face stained with tears and blood on her hands – Coran’s blood. She looked completely miserable. I understood, to some extent, but of course, the blood on my hands was not that of someone I cared about so much. She was just an ally. I stopped walking to look back at her, and she smiled a little, broken, but genuine. 

“You don’t have to walk away, Keith,” She said in a small voice. Her eyes were full of tears, and it was clear that she wasn’t being ingenuine. I looked down slightly, glancing down at Ezor, cold and very much dead in my arms. “Come. We’ll give her a proper send-off… If that is what you want, that is,” She held her hand out to me, and I hesitated. 

“I didn’t think you wanted me around after-“

“Time has passed,” She interrupted, walking over and putting her arm around my shoulder. “Nobody blames you for anything, Keith. They missed you.” She started to lead me back toward the truck, where I could see Pidge perched in the back, holding on to the side of the truck, looking just as devastated as Allura. 

“Keith?” Pidge’s voice was quiet, and sounded choked up, as though she was going to burst into tears at any second. “Are you coming back with us?” I hesitated and looked at Ezor’s body, then at Allura. She nodded. Pidge smiled through the tears that were brimmed in her eyes, and hugged me as I placed the body down into the back of the truck and covered her with my jacket. 

If anything, I didn’t expect Pidge to cling to my arm as the truck started moving again. I definitely didn’t expect her to then lean on my shoulder and start crying, because I had never actually seen her cry before. It hurt, seeing someone you have known for so long, someone so strong, break down like that. Much more, it hurt knowing that I couldn’t stop it. This was completely out of my hands, whether I liked it or not, and yet there was something about the closeness that said something to me. I couldn’t put my finger on it, but at that moment, I didn’t need to. I simply put the boundaries I had for myself aside and hugged her tightly, finally giving into the tears that I had felt stinging my eyes for the last few weeks constantly. 

Returning to my empty room was difficult, but it felt nice to be able to sleep on an actual bed rather than a floor in an abandoned shop. Lance didn’t speak to me when we got back, and neither did Hunk. Instead, they both walked off to their rooms silently, Lance carrying his gun on his shoulder as though someone could walk in front of him and try and kill him at any second. Pidge fell asleep after crying for an hour or so, and Allura took her to her room so she could sleep it off properly rather than being uncomfortable on the small sofa in the living area downstairs. So, I was left alone. Alone to think about everything that had happened, alone to unpack the few supplies I had left, but more importantly, alone to think about how I could possibly apologise to everyone properly. 

Ezor was buried down the street at a local park, in a grave that I dug myself and with nobody by Allura, Pidge and Hunk around. It felt right, after what I had done, to put her to rest properly. It wasn’t like the soulless beasts that I killed every day, because Ezor was a person, and she had a life to live, air in her lungs, dreams that she wanted to accomplish. I had taken all of that away from her, and every time I thought about that, I felt the guilt pooling in my gut. Surprisingly, Hunk was very good with words, and said a few words out of respect as we filled the grave in, and for a while, I just sat there, thinking, while the others made their way back to the house. 

“I’m sorry…” I muttered, sitting down by the small mound of dirt that I had just evened out. “You didn’t deserve any of this, and I hope you understand.” 

Okay, so me sitting alone and speaking to some dirt, in hindsight, did seem a little strange. I don’t know what it was, but I just felt that I needed to tell her, even if she couldn’t hear me. I didn’t stay for long, deciding to take a longer route back to the house after I knew everyone had left. I had a lot to think about, and the quieter it was, the better. I was almost completely convinced I was alone for the first 10 minutes of walking, with the exception of the odd murmur of low, dead voices that I had gotten so used to. And so, as I walked quiet enough to be undetected by them, I lost my mind to the storm of thoughts that had been stirring in my head over the last day. 

How long it took me to get to the street, I didn’t know, but it had grown a little darker since I last payed the sky any attention. At the end of the street, I could see Allura’s house, and stood at the gate and leaning on the fence, was a rather sombre looking Lance, no gun in sight, stood with his arms folded over his chest and one foot crossed over the other as he looked down at the ground beneath him. I paused on the corner of the road and watched him for a moment, unsure of what I was about to walk into. 

He was no longer Lance Mcclain, the goofball with a shit eating grin that always knew how to make someone feel better. He wasn’t Lance Mcclain who spoke so dearly of his family whenever he had the chance. He was just a shell, or seemed it. His face at rest looked sullen, and he seemed like he didn’t want to be disturbed. Lance had changed, or this fucked up world had changed him without him being able to do anything about it. With a little hesitation, I pulled my hood up and started to make my way toward the house, avoiding as much eye contact as I could. 

“Keith,” He said softly as I approached. I looked up from under my hood. “I wondered if we could talk… I… I need to apologise,” 

I raised an eyebrow. “Apologise?” I questioned, trying to read his expression. He nodded. “What for?”

“Well… it was me that made you leave,” He said quietly, averting his eyes. “Seriously though, you should have said something about it… I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable-“

“Lance what are you talking about?” I asked, half understanding what was happening, but still not knowing why. 

“Not here. Come back inside at least,” He said, opening the gate and leading me back inside. I followed, taking my hood down and staying quiet as he sat down in one of the chairs in the now empty living area. 

“Okay, for one, I don’t know what you’re apologising for.” I said after a moment of silence as we sat down.

“Pidge told me,” Lance said. “About you… How what I said when you pointed that guy out on the roof would have made you uncomfortable,” 

I winced a little but took a deep breath. “Yeah… that doesn’t mean I had to punch you in the face,”

“I deserved it,” He said, chuckling slightly as he seemed to relax a little. “But I wanted you to know that nobody is going to say anything about it here,” 

“I know Pidge won’t,” I admitted. “She’s known for years,”

“Yeah, well Hunk has two moms, and Allura has no problem either,” He told me. I smiled slightly. “And I’d be a fucking hypocrite if I threatened to beat you up for being gay,” 

I blinked. “You would?” I asked, confused. 

“Keith, I used to flirt with anything that walked before the apocalypse took over the city. I’m not exactly straight myself,” He laughed nervously, and I smiled. “But that shouldn’t matter anyway. None of us are going to think of you any differently. I’m just sorry you thought I was being an asshole – which I was, but it was an unintentional incident this time,” He added quickly. 

“Thank you, Lance,” I said. “And thanks for not punching me back I guess,” 

“I can make that happen, mullet,” He teased, pushing my shoulder. I rolled my eyes. 

“This new Lance is just a front then,” I observed. “You’re still you,”

“I’ve never not been me,” He smiled. “A few zombies won’t change me that much. It’s the lack of showers that is gonna change me.”

I laughed, understanding completely, and suddenly, things felt brighter than they had in a long time.


	13. 13 - Family

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> '“Well I was 100% convinced I saw Bigfoot in the woods behind the orphanage when I was 5, so I brought it up,” I chuckled. “But Bigfoot is bullshit. It’s all about-“
> 
> Lance sighed. “Mothman? Yeah, Pidge tells us all the time,” I smiled. “You’re a fucking dork,” 
> 
> “And you’re annoying as fuck,” I retorted. Lance simply shrugged and laughed. 
> 
> “What can I say? My dashing good looks and fantastic charm can only work on so many people,” I rolled my eyes.'

I really didn’t realise how much I appreciated showers until the fucking apocalypse. 

Hygiene wasn’t exactly first priority in this world, but that didn’t stop me from feeling gross every time I touched my hair. I’d never gone this long without a proper shower or bath, and without warm running water, we didn’t really have much choice. Allura’s house – or the castle, as everyone was calling it – still had working water, but it was freezing cold, and had to be heated over a fire before we could safely bathe without freezing to death. They had a rota which they followed, every few days, somebody else would have the chance to scrub the last week’s dirt off their skin in a warm bath.

Today, three days after I re-joined the group, it was finally my turn. 

It took a lot of time to heat it up, but after a few trips, I had filled the bath with enough hot water for a bath. The sight of it almost brought tears to my eyes, and I immediately threw off my filthy clothes and scrubbed my skin down once before carefully lowering myself into the water. It was a luxury I had never appreciated that much before, but the thought of being able to properly scrub my skin of the dirt and blood that had accumulated over the last couple of months was incredible. Not wanting to waste the warmth, I made quick work of cleaning myself up, and then, ducked my hair under the water. 

Another luxury that, somehow, was perched on the edge of the bathtub, was soap. I eagerly washed my hair and scrubbed the dirt from under my nails, then rinsed the soap away with some more water. This was like heaven, and although the water had turned a murky brown colour from all the dirt, I almost didn’t want to get out. But by the time I was finished, the water had started to cool, and I felt a shiver shake across my exposed skin. With a sigh, I pulled myself to my feet and climbed out, draining the water to wash the dirt even further away. 

When I returned to my room through the door, wrapped in the biggest towel I could find in the bathroom, I noticed a fresh pile of clothes set neatly on my bed. I didn’t even care who’s clothes they were at this point, because anything was going to better than my bloodstained shirt and jeans. After drying off and changing, I lay back on my bed and stared up at the ceiling for a while, just thinking about what had happened, and what my next steps were. 

There had been no sign of Shiro, although I never expected anyone here other than Pidge to know who he was anyway. I wasn’t going to give up, that was for sure. He had never given up on me, and I was determined to show him that I wouldn’t give up on him either. I had to find a way to get to that lab, even if it meant abandoning the group again to do so. If there was any chance of finding Shiro alive and well, I had to take it. There was no other choice. 

“Hey Keith? Buddy?” Lance’s voice from the other side of the door shook me from my thoughts, and I looked up. “You okay in there, man? You didn’t drown in the bath, did you? That would be a shitty way of dying in a zombie apocalypse,” I felt myself chuckle slightly as I walked over to the door and opened it. Lance looked better than he had when I had seen him again for the first time. His eyes were still dark, but he looked much more rested, and his hair, although now tied back from it being way too long to keep down, looked neater than it had earlier that morning. 

“I’m still breathing,” I confirmed. He smiled, probably the most genuine smile I had seen in a long time. 

“Good, cause if you died, I’d have to kill you, you know that?” He asked. I snorted a little, shaking my head. “You got the clothes then. They fit okay? I know everyone has lost like, half the weight they had before so-“

“They’re fine, Lance. Honestly,” I assured him. “It’s a lot better than me wearing the ones I had been. I hadn’t changed them in nearly 2 weeks,” I said awkwardly, scratching the back of my neck. Lance smiled. 

“Yeah, well you’re back now. We’ve got plenty of clothes and we still have a working laundry room thanks to Pidge and her genius ways,” He said. “Did you know she can build an electricity generator out of-“

“Out of a bike, some wire, and a handful of magnets?” I finished. Lance’s eyes widened a little. “Yeah… We went camping once and she managed to charge her phone for the whole weekend by doing it,” 

“I didn’t know you two were so close,” He said. I shrugged. “How do you actually know each other?”

I paused for a moment. “Our brothers were best friends. I lived with my brother and sometimes Matt would come and stay, so when I moved in with Shiro, Pidge would tag along, and we’d sit up all night and watch scary movies or conspiracy theories until the sun came up,” Lance laughed. 

“Who made who watch them first?”

“Well I was 100% convinced I saw Bigfoot in the woods behind the orphanage when I was 5, so I brought it up,” I chuckled. “But Bigfoot is bullshit. It’s all about-“

Lance sighed. “Mothman? Yeah, Pidge tells us all the time,” I smiled. “You’re a fucking dork,” 

“And you’re annoying as fuck,” I retorted. Lance simply shrugged and laughed. 

“What can I say? My dashing good looks and fantastic charm can only work on so many people,” I rolled my eyes. 

Lance and I talked for a while as we made our way down to the kitchen, not about anything important like we probably should have been, but it was nice to finally be able to get my head out of the frame of mind that there could be something ready to kill me around every corner. The castle was safe, and I felt at ease for the first time in so long that it almost felt completely foreign to me as I let my guard down. Lance seemed more relaxed too, which was strange to see. I hadn’t known him very well before the outbreak, but I was sure that this was more like his usual self than I had seen before. It was nice. 

Rations at the castle were amazing – much more than I had got when I was travelling around with the Galra, and much better quality. It turns out, Hunk could make delicious food out of absolutely anything, which was a relief. I hadn’t tasted food this good in a long, long time. I think Lance and Hunk could tell, because I found myself shovelling the food into my mouth eagerly, despite it only being some well-cooked rice with some tinned vegetables, without any complaint at all. It was safe to say, I was happy to be back. 

“You seem better today,” Hunk said cheerily as he took my empty plate from me. His eyes were red, making it clear that Coran’s loss had been hard on him especially, but he was putting on his best smile to try and keep everyone’s spirits high. 

“I feel it. Do you have any idea what it’s like to live in the same clothes for nearly 3 months?” I joked, pulling the sleeves of the white shirt I had been given down my arms a little more. “I think that shirt had more blood on it that it had dye,” 

“That kind of happens when you need to survive,” Hunk said, gesturing to a pile of bloodstained laundry by the door. “We all get it, but you look like you’ve been through some shit,” 

“Where were you all this time, Keith?” Lance asked, clearly concerned. “And why did you just… go?”

I sighed. “I guess I’m just used to being thrown out whenever I mess up, and I didn’t want that to happen this time around,” I admitted sadly. “I’ve never really stayed with the same people much I guess… I’m kind of used to being rejected as soon as I start to trust people, and I didn’t want that to happen with you guys. I… actually feel like I’m meant to be here,” 

Hunk smiled softly and placed a reassuring hand on my shoulder. “You are meant to be here,” He assured me. “Even though you weren’t here for long, it still felt empty here without you. I don’t know what it was, but you took something with you when you left. But now it’s back,” 

Lance nodded as he finished his food. “Hunk’s right, man,” He said around a mouthful of rice. “Who’d have thought the guy with the outdated mullet and the style of a 14-year-old who spends all weekend in Hot Topic would be the one to bring us all together,” 

“Hey, I do not dress like a 14-year-old!” I argued. Lance and Hunk laughed. “And for your information, I’ve not been to Hot Topic in nearly 4 years-“

“That’s not something you should admit, Keithy boy,” Lance said, laughing. “Oh man, did you have an emo phase?”

“Everyone had an emo phase-“

“Not me,” Lance bragged. 

“You are such a fucking Liar, Lance,” Hunk said, taking his plate. Lance turned slightly red. “I once walked into your room when we were 13 and you were screaming the lyrics to The Black Parade-“

“You’re such a traitor,” He grumbled, hiding his face with his hood by pulling the drawstrings as tight as he could. I found myself laughing a little, and the thought of Lance with the typical emo haircut, wearing eyeliner and a My Chemical Romance shirt almost made me simultaneously cringe and want to smile. “It was like, one year. I swear,” 

“The Black Parade was good, and it still is.” I added. Lance looked at me through the gap in his hood. “What? I might not be full on 2007 emo kid now, but everyone liked MCR at some point-“

“You still do,” Pidge interrupted as she walked in. “We know how much you do. Everyone does.”

“I bet you had the hair-“

“Oh, he had the hair,” She said. I felt my face grow hot in embarrassment. 

Lance howled with laughter. “And I thought the mullet was bad,” He wheezed. Hunk just rolled his eyes. “Did it look bad?”

“I mean, I can’t say. You’d be better off asking Matt,” Pidge said. “But if you look close enough you can still see the piercings-“

“Pidge I hate you,” I said into my arms as I hid my face. 

“… Piercings?”

Pidge grabbed my hair and pulled my head up before pointing at my mouth. “Look,”

Then Lance moved in closer. I couldn’t really move out of the way, because Pidge was much stronger than I remembered, and she had such a firm grip on my head that I thought she might break my neck. He smiled as he looked, and then backed off again. 

“I knew you had your tongue pierced but lip piercings too? Damn, Keith. You were hardcore,” He said with a chuckle. I struggled free of Pidge’s death grip, and she snorted. 

“And the ears,” She added, lifting a bit of my hair. I slapped her hand away. 

“Do I deserve this abuse? I was young, stupid, reckless-“

“It was like, 2 years ago, Keith,” She said monotonously. Lance and Hunk broke into hysterics immediately. 

“I need pictures, as soon as we get out of the city and you can get some. I. Need. Pictures.” Lance insisted. I rolled my eyes. “I’ll trade one for one of me,” He said with a wink. I choked on my water as I took a sip from a bottle on the table. 

“LANCE. PHRASING.” Hunk yelled, now having to wipe a tear from off his cheek form where he had been laughing so hard. Pidge looked simply disgusted, but she was still laughing along. Lance, realising what he had said, turned a hilarious shade of pink, and I couldn’t help but laugh myself as I watched him look a little uncomfortable. 

Although I knew that most of the conversation was simply there to make fun of me, it was nice to speak so freely and not have to worry about what I said. I felt like, after all that we had all been through, the four of us could trust one another enough now. I had some walls up still, but finding the people I needed to help me break them down had done so much. I finally felt wanted, for the first time in my life. I knew that these people were the closest thing to a family I was ever going to have again. 

And for a change, I didn’t mind the thought of that.


	14. 14 - Grounding

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> '“I’m okay,” I lied. Pidge shook her head.
> 
> “No, you’re not. You need to go and get some sleep, Keith. It’s been 2 weeks since you slept through the night,” She reminded me. I sighed. “Is it being alone?”
> 
> “A little… But I’ll try and sleep, I promise,” I told her as I moved to get up. She nodded, but frowned a little. “I’m gonna take a bath and then go to bed,” I told them.
> 
> And that was what I did.'

_4 years earlier_

“Keith,” I kept walking.

“Keith wait,” I didn’t stop.

“Keith, he didn’t mean it,” Shiro assured me as he finally caught up. I rolled my eyes and kept walking, not wanting to be anywhere near them.

Growing up in the care system was fucking hard. I’d been there for as long as I could remember, and not once did I ever have the chance to find a family that stayed long enough for me to care about them. Not once did they keep me in their family, or even accept me as part of it, for long enough that I would be able to call them my family. I guess that was one of the reasons I didn’t trust very easily. I turned people away before they could hurt me like I had been hurt before. I didn’t want the pain of being abandoned again.

That’s why when Shiro’s father called me an outcast on that rainy September morning, I decided it was time I stopped trying to trust people.

I was 15; still a kid, still trying to grow up like a normal teenager would, and still trying to understand why nobody wanted me. I got it for the most part, but it was still hard for me to understand what happened to my real parents, even when I couldn’t help it. People just tended to never stay for long, and I had started to follow a habit of not getting too emotionally attached to my temporary families in fear of them ditching me again. Of course, that wouldn’t happen for long.

Shiro’s family were different. They treated me like a son rather than just a kid they’d just been forced to take in. They included me in days out with Shiro and his brother and sister, they talked about school with me and listened to me complain, they even put some of my drawings up on the wall with Shiro’s. I felt like I really did have a family. Shiro and I got on the best, of course, but then again, they were all amazing people, no matter how busy they always were. It was nice. Until it wasn’t.

Shiro kept following me as I walked out of the house. I hadn’t brought a jacket, and I was beginning to regret not grabbing one as I left. The rain was freezing, and the fact that I was only wearing a t-shirt didn’t help in the slightest as I got further away from the house. But I didn’t look back, partly because going back would be defeating the point of the argument entirely, but also because I didn’t want to embarrass myself any more than I had.

“Keith, wait!” Shiro’s hand on my shoulder physically stopped me from going any further. I turned to look at him, not afraid to show my face in the rain as I knew it would partially disguise the fact that I had started crying at some point between leaving the house and arriving at the park. “Please come home… You know he didn’t mean it-“

“How do you know, golden boy?” I snapped. Shiro’s face fell. “You have a real family. You have no idea what it’s like!” I was shouting now, but I didn’t care what the people in the park thought as they walked past. I didn’t care if I looked crazy for shouting and screaming over what most people would say was nothing. I just didn’t care.

“I know I don’t understand.” He said firmly. “I don’t understand because you won’t let me try to. You won’t let any of us try, Keith. Just… Let me in. I don’t want to make fun of you like the other kids do, and I don’t want you to think that just because I still live with my parents that I don’t want to understand what you’ve been through,” He stepped a little closer.

“You… You don’t get it,” I said quietly.

“I know I don’t…” He replied simply, leading me over to a bus shelter just outside of the park and sitting me down. “So, tell me. I’ll listen.”

* * *

 

It was Pidge that brought it up first. The sudden mention of Shiro to the rest of the group wasn’t what I was expecting, and I guess I just crumbled. Lance noticed first, and immediately sat me down before I fell. Hunk realised what was happening first, and started trying to get me to breathe evenly. I hadn’t experienced an anxiety attack in nearly a year, and yet it felt like such a sickeningly familiar feeling that I wanted to pull my chest open to stop the tightness from inside. I was hurting, and I wasn’t going to deny it. The others could tell.

But Allura didn’t seem to care.

“We don’t have time for this nonsense.” She snapped as I eventually calmed after what seemed like forever. The looks that got shot in her direction from the others weren’t friendly.

“Are you fucking blind?” Lance asked her in disbelief. She gave him a blank expression. “You can’t brush off what’s just happened like it’s nothing, Allura. Keith needs to rest a while-“

“We don’t have time to rest,” She snapped again. “We have to get to that lab by the end of this week, that’s final.” She told us all. I frowned. I was just getting in their way.

“You can go by yourself if you really think we’re letting you speak to our friend like that,” Pidge told her casually. Allura froze. “The team comes first. The missing come second. The dead come last,” She turned back to me.

“I’m okay,” I lied. Pidge shook her head.

“No, you’re not. You need to go and get some sleep, Keith. It’s been 2 weeks since you slept through the night,” She reminded me. I sighed. “Is it being alone?”

“A little… But I’ll try and sleep, I promise,” I told her as I moved to get up. She nodded, but frowned a little. “I’m gonna take a bath and then go to bed,” I told them.

And that was what I did.

Baths weren’t regular, but when I got one, it grounded me enough to get a good night’s sleep. I stayed in the warm water until it turned cold, noticing how much less dirty it had become since my return to the castle. Feeling a little more relaxed, I got out and drained the water before drying myself off and changing into my clean clothes. It was nice to feel at home here, but it was lonely, despite Pidge and Hunk and Lance being so accommodating. Allura hadn’t been herself since we lost Coran, but I knew that it was the grief of losing the only family she thought she had left that was causing her to act like she was.

I visited Ezor’s grave every few days, leaving my patrol, which was usually with Hunk, and spending just a few minutes, talking at the ground. It wasn’t like we were close at all, but I found a strange sense of comfort in being able to go to her final resting place to let all my thoughts out. Some days, I stayed for a few minutes, but others, I’d be there for hours without noticing it. Ezor’s grave was another place I could keep myself grounded, but it was late. Too late to go out now.

So, I opted for my bed instead. It wasn’t ideal, because I spent way too much time in bed as it was according to Allura, but after moving it across the room to the window, I found that I could just sit with my back against the headboard and look up at the stars as I tried to get to sleep. I found it oddly peaceful, just staring up into space, wishing that I knew the secrets the universe was hiding from me. Desperately longing for an escape from this hell. Dreaming of one day seeing the planet from up there, even though it was unlikely I’d even survive. I don’t know how long I watched the stars that night.

“Keith?” A familiar voice whispered from outside the door. It shook me from my thoughts, and I walked over to the door and opened it slightly, only to see Lance, a blue blanket wrapped around his shoulders, looking exhausted.

“You look like shit,” I said without thinking. He huffed out a laugh and pushed into my room before wrapping the blanket around himself more and flopping down onto my bed. “What are you-“

“Didn’t want to be alone,” He explained quietly. I raised an eyebrow in surprise. “Don’t act like you’ve never shared a bed with me before, Kogane.”

“I know, but-“

“Do you want me to leave?” He asked in a small voice. I hesitated before closing the door and walking over, taking a seat on the bed next to him. “I can leave if you don’t want me here… It isn’t a problem,”

“Its fine,” I assured him. “I couldn’t sleep anyway,”

“I figured…” He said as he looked down at the neatly made bed. “… Your hair’s got longer…” He pointed out, reaching, and taking a piece of it between his fingers. My first instinct was to move out of the way, but I didn’t.

“Yeah… That’s what happens after a few months of not cutting it,” I said sarcastically. He rolled his eyes. “Yours has too,”

“Yeah…” He was looking straight at me, and I couldn’t deny that it was making me a little confused. Lance usually went to Hunk when he couldn’t sleep. Why was he in my room messing with my hair?

“Lance are you okay?” I asked him quietly as he looked at the hair between his fingers. He frowned slightly.

“Do you ever get lonely?” He muttered. My eyes softened slightly, and I nodded, understanding completely. “Back home I’d go and see my brothers… Or read to my niece… Or… Anything to keep my mind off being alone but-“

“I know, Lance…” I said, cutting him off. “Believe me, I know…”

He looked me in the eyes for a long few seconds before speaking. “How lonely do you get, Keith?” He asked. I furrowed my brow in confusion. “Like… I miss my family most of the time… but sometimes I just miss being hugged… Y’know? The apocalypse has got me all touch starved and… I don’t know…”

“Touch starved?” I asked curiously. “You mean you miss being touched?”

“Not like that, Keith,” He groaned and nudged my shoulder with his elbow. I chuckled. “Well, kind of… But that’s not the point,”

I blinked. “… Do you need a hug, Lance?” I asked him. He hesitated before nodding.

So, I did what any good friend would do. I turned to face him and pulled him in close for a genuine hug, a hug that I would have wanted if I was in Lance’s position right now. He seemed exhausted, and yet there was no chance he was going to sleep. He was too tense. His shoulders relaxed slightly as I sat back against the headboard, encouraging him to move up too, and after a few minutes of sitting with his head resting on my shoulder, he finally seemed to have calmed down a bit.

“You’re good at hugs, Keith…” He said in a low voice. I didn’t know what to say. It wasn’t like I’d been practicing hugging people specifically for Lance. “You’re… pretty good at everything actually…”

I shook my head. “Not everything,” I corrected. He looked up at me. “I mean… I’m not good with people… I have to social skills of a dying walrus. I’m no good at keeping calm, I get angry too easily, I’m too sensitive to things people say…” I started to list things off that floated around in my head.

“Everyone’s sensitive if you pull at their strings hard enough…” He had pulled the blanket over my legs too at this point, realising how cold I actually was without my own sheets pulled over me.

“… I run away when I need to cry,” I admitted. Lance frowned. “I don’t like people seeing me at my lowest I guess… So, all those times I’ve stormed off? Yeah…”

Lance sat up a little and leaned against the headboard too, pulling free from the hug. I frowned slightly at the loss of contact, but it was soon replaced, as he pulled me to his chest and hugged me tighter than I’ve ever been hugged in my life. It would have been unpleasant, but for some reason, it felt right. I relaxed and rested my head half on Lance’s shoulder, half on his chest, and closed my eyes for a moment. Was this what it felt like to be truly wanted? I didn’t know. But it was nice. Really nice.

“I think you’ve been pretty fucking touch starved your whole life, haven’t you, Mullet?” He asked me as I felt his fingers run through my hair. I tensed up for a second, but slowly relaxed as the feeling of his gentle fingers brush against my scalp grounded me more. “I think it’s you that needs the hugs. Not me,” 

“Lance?”

“Hm?”

“Don’t ruin this by talking,” I said, He laughed slightly, but went quiet. Quiet enough that all I could hear was the sound of his even breathing, and all I could feel was the rise and fall of his chest. “Thank you, Lance.” I said quietly.

“Any time, buddy,” He replied quietly. I felt myself smile before my eyelids grew heavier, and I eventually gave into my tiredness.


	15. 15 - A Break

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> '“What am I drawing?” I asked him. He shrugged.
> 
> “Draw the first thing you think about,” He said, watching carefully as I pulled a pencil out of the pencil case and tapped it against my lips in thought.'

For the first time in weeks, I slept all the way through the night with no disturbances. No night terrors, no attacks, not even a peep. I desperately needed a good night’s sleep, and finally being able to get some well-deserved rest that wasn’t interrupted by screeching from the monsters, or the alarms, or Allura barging in at an ungodly hour, was the best feeling in the world. And yet it was all so fucking strange, because when I woke up, I wasn’t alone.

My eyes fluttered open slowly, trying to adjust to the morning light that was seeping through the curtains from the sides. Usually, when I woke to this room, I’d be freezing; there was no real way to heat the house now without lighting the fire in the main rooms, and although we had a fireplace in our rooms too, I never lit mine in fear that I’d burn the room down in my sleep. But today, my bed was warm, and I felt myself curling closer to the heat source unconsciously.

Until I realised who it was.

Lance was already awake, and him laughing sleepily at me trying to bury my head under the covers again brought me to my senses. I had the urge to jump away from him, but I simply didn’t have the energy to move. Instead, I lay my head back on his chest and grumbled quietly, not bothering to even try and get up yet. There had been no alarm, no wakeup call from Allura, and most importantly, no screeching. Besides, I felt pretty safe and comfortable, so what was the harm in a few more minutes?

“Sleep well, Mullet?” Lance asked, his voice gravelly and low. I looked up at him, opening one eye. He looked tired, but there was a lopsided smile on his face, and his hair was a complete mess. I mumbled in response and he chuckled, the sound low and reverberating into my ear as my head rested on his chest. “You look like you needed that,”

“Shuddup Lance,” I mumbled sleepily, half into his shirt. Another chuckle, his smile widening more. “I’ll drool on you,”

“Oh yeah?” He teased, casually draping his arm over my shoulder and resting his hand over my ribs. It was intimate – almost intrusive – but I didn’t stop him. The contact was almost comforting. “You already talk in your sleep, I don’t need drool too,” My eyes widened a little. Shiro had always said that I talked in my sleep, but I never thought much of it. Had I said something that had offended him? Or something embarrassing?

“Juts out of curiosity… What did I say?” I asked him. Lance smiled and brought his other hand up to brush some of my hair out of my face that had been obstructing my vision for a while.

“It wasn’t really… It didn’t make a lot of sense. You kept saying ‘Shiro’ over and over again, but I completely get it if you don’t want to talk about him…” He trailed off. I frowned slightly, but felt a little relieved that I hadn’t said anything stupid.

“Sorry about that… I didn’t mean to wake you up or anything,” I told him honestly, before yawning and stretching my legs out a little. “We should probably get up… huh?”

“Nah, Pidge and Hunk took the patrol today. Hunk came by earlier to let us know,” I felt myself tense up slightly. “He said he wouldn’t say anything. It’s cool. I know you probably don’t want everyone knowing I slept with you-“

“Hunk’s right, you need to think about phrasing,” I joked, causing Lance to turn a light shade of pink. “But that’s kind of a relief… Means I can just sort of… Sleep a bit more I guess,”

Lance smiled. “You’re cool with me staying?” He asked. I nodded, not wanting to move away from his body heat. I knew I used to be grumpy when I first woke up, but feeling like I could do that again instead of having to think about not dying as soon as I opened my eyes was probably the best thing I had felt in months.

Lance and I lay there, not speaking, but just in each other’s company, for about an hour. We didn’t bother to talk, because the silence wasn’t awkward, and we seemed to both silently agree that we needed the extra rest. I didn’t manage to fall back to sleep, and eventually, I did shift so I was no longer resting on him, but on my own pillow. He didn’t complain or protest, and neither did I. It was like we could silently explain ourselves, and I was perfectly fine with that. I was never good with talking my way out of situations anyway.

“Hey Keith?” Lance said after a while. I turned over and looked up at him. “Do you still have your sketch book?” I gave him a confused look, but slowly nodded.

“Why do you care about my sketch book?” I asked him curiously. He shrugged.

“Just wondered if you still liked to draw between murdering people, y’know…” He joked. I snorted a little and shook my head. “So, you don’t draw anymore?”

I shrugged. “I don’t really get the time,” I admitted, sitting up properly, shivering a little as the sheets slipped down my arms. “But I guess I still could. It’s been a few weeks since I even looked at my sketch book,”

Lance’s face lit up, and he jumped out of bed. “I’ll light the fire,” He started, tripping a little on the sheets that had gotten tangled around his foot as he moved. “But will you draw something for me?”

I didn’t understand why he wanted me to, but for some reason, I found myself agreeing as he lit the fire. The room warmed up almost immediately, and I simply pulled on a black hoodie that had only just been washed to keep me warm while I was outside the warmth of the bed. Lance sat cross legged opposite me on the floor as I slid down to lean against the bed and grabbed my bag from underneath, pulling a now rather damaged, but familiar book from inside. My pencils were still in pretty good shape, because I never took them anywhere, and I found some relief in finding that the pens I had packed into my bag for my classes on the last normal day of our lives were still buried underneath a spare pair of converse.

“What am I drawing?” I asked him. He shrugged.

“Draw the first thing you think about,” He said, watching carefully as I pulled a pencil out of the pencil case and tapped it against my lips in thought.

I lost myself very quickly in my drawing, pulling the pencil across the paper in delicate strokes as I drew from memory. Lance seemed to watch, almost in awe, as I sketched out a basic outline, and then tilted his head slightly as he tried to figure out what it was. Of course, I didn’t want him to watch for too long. This was going to be a surprise, so I quickly tucked my knees up and rested the sketch book against my legs as I continued to draw. After a few minutes, I switched to my pens, and carefully outlined the piece, then added details with a finer nib, and shading with another. I didn’t expect much to come of the drawing, and in all honestly, I forgot what I was drawing until I looked over it for the last time, having lost myself in concentration as I tried to make the best of the time I had.

“Can I see?” He asked me. I looked at the drawing again, blinking in realisation. I'd drawn Lance. Not just Lance as he was now either. Lance on the roof, the day that he saved my life all that time ago. Lance holding his gun, looking down the scope. Lance being a hero, just like I saw him. “Keith?”

“Huh?”

“Can I see it?” He asked. I hesitated for a moment before handing him the book. His eyes widened. “Holy shit- how did you-“

“I know it’s weird but-“

“You… Do I actually look like that when I shoot?” He asked in disbelief. I nodded. “Wow… This is amazing… But I asked you to draw the first thing you thought of,” He reminded me. I groaned in embarrassment and instinctually brought my hands up to my face.

“I hate you,” I uttered into my hands. Lance laughed, and holy shit. That laugh was so contagious. I soon felt myself laughing too, my hands dropping from my face and letting out a proper belly laugh for the first time in years. Lance laughed just as hard, tipping onto his side, and clutching his ribs. Why were we laughing? Who cared. I’d not felt this happy in so long, and honestly, laughing away our problems was probably all we needed to do. The sketch book lay open on the floor, and soon enough, we were lying on our backs staring at the ceiling.

I turned to face him, wiping the tears from my eyes and finally calming down for long enough to catch my breath. What I didn’t realise was how close his face was from my own, and now, just inches apart, the laughter halted completely. Had his eyes always been this blue? Hell, if I knew. But I still admired them while I could, noticing how unique it was to see someone have eyes that blue without wearing contacts. He didn’t move back or protest at me mindlessly staring, because it was harmless, right?

“Do you think we’ll still be friends once all this is over?” Lance asked quietly.

“I don’t see why we wouldn’t be,” I admitted. “Unless I punch you again, or one of us dies,”

Lance laughed a little. “Once an emo kid, always an emo kid,” He joked. I rolled my eyes. “Speaking of which, I still stand by what I said, Mullet. I want to see those photos.”

I groaned. “Pass me my phone,” I told him reluctantly. His face lit up for the second time that day, and he scrambled over to the nightstand, where I had put my phone while I slept. It was fortunate for Lance that I had remembered to charge it the last time Pidge had the power running, because when I turned it on, I found it almost fully charged. “Okay, so this was when I was… what? 15 maybe?” I questioned myself as I brought up a picture of myself with Shiro. Lance’s eyes widened.

I was 16 in the photo, looking back. Red flannel shirt tied around my waist and torn black skinny jeans, complete with a My Chemical Romance shirt, all the piercings I had desperately tried to hide over the years, and the hair. I think, even though I couldn't quite see, I had painted my nails for the day it had been taken too, but knowing 16-year-old me, I had probably just coloured them in with a Sharpie at school. I remember how much shit I’d got from Shiro when I first got my lip pierced, and in spite, I got it done a second time the following week. I was never in a good place back then, but this photo, taken outside a concert that Shiro and I went to after I finished school one day, was one of the few occasions I could be found with a smile on my face.

“I thought emo kids never smiled,” Lance teased. I punched him in the shoulder, causing him to laugh more. “You look happy there. Is that your brother?”

I nodded, looking at how much younger Shiro looked in this photo. There were no bags under his eyes, and the front of his hair was still its natural colour, unlike it had been for the last few years after a chemical accident in the lab turned it white. He was wearing his signature smile, and had an arm around my shoulder. I scrolled across the next photo, which was, in essence, the same. Only in this one, I was grinning, possibly mid laugh. I cringed a little as I looked at the photo, because seeing myself with braces wasn’t something I liked to look back on, because those bastards hurt like a bitch.

I flicked through a few more; a photo of us with Shiro’s family, sat at the table eating at Christmas, another of Pidge, Matt and I attempting to paint a Tardis onto a cardboard box for Pidge’s Halloween costume, and finally, a very old photo of myself sat at a desk on my own. It was a photo I had taken of a physical picture, so the glare from the photo paper wasn’t exactly the nicest thing to look at, but looking back at it brought back a lot of memories.

“I think I was only 10,” I told Lance before he asked. “That was way before I was adopted, and way before I had a phone. It was one of the photos I found in my file after I moved out,”

“You look so small,” He observed. I looked at him, but he kept looking at the picture. “Like, you’re completely different with short hair. I know you’re only a kid there but… I guess it’s weird seeing your neck,” He told me, gesturing to the back of my hair.

“I used to try and bite anyone that tried to cut it. That’s why it’s like it is,” I explained with a chuckle. “Same with the dentist that put my braces on. She was German, and shouted instead of talking. She scared the shit out of me,” Lance laughed again.

“Keith?” Lance said after a few minutes of silence. I looked at him, leaning my head back on the bed.

“What?”

“You were cute.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this story is my first one to hit 1000+ reads? Holy shit???
> 
> Thank you so much for sticking with it while I write this story instead of doing actual work, because I've fallen into that habit of staying up until 4am writing this, not because I have to, but because it's actually addictive to write. Everyone's comments and Kudos are appreciated, they actually keep me writing. Thanks to anybody who's took the time to read this actual word vomit <3


	16. 16 - Leaving

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> '“So, it looks like we’re gonna have to start going out further if we want to find anything. We’ve pretty much cleared this block of food and medical supplies.”
> 
> I frowned slightly. “We’ve got a safe place to sleep here, yet it’s getting too difficult to get anything to eat. Does that mean we’re gonna have to move?” I asked Allura. She hesitated and sighed a little before taking a seat opposite me.
> 
> “It’s a possibility if we don’t manage to find an answer in the labs"'

I blinked.

“I was what?”

“You were cute,” He confirmed. “Holy shit, Keith? Are you breathing?”

I was not breathing.

How the fuck am I supposed to react to that? When did he mean? Was that supposed to be a compliment or just an offhanded mockery of my height again? Did he still think that? Not like I cared or anything but-

“Keith? Say something buddy…” Lance’s voice was dripping with concern, so much so that I forced myself to snap out of it and look at him. “Thought I lost you for a second there,”

“Sorry…” I said, rubbing my temple lightly.

“You’re not good with compliments are you, Mullet?” He asked. I hesitantly shook my head. “That kind of sucks. I could say more, but I don’t want you to pass out or anything,” He joked. I narrowed my eyes at him.

I should have known that our day off from surviving wouldn’t last too long. As if on cue, Allura knocked the door and before I could get up to open the door, she had walked in, a stern look on her face and started talking the two of us through what we could have been doing instead of slacking off all morning. Lance’s smile faded, and so did mine, and soon enough, we were putting the fire out in my room and heading down to help Allura plan for the next attempt at getting into the labs.

The past attempts hadn’t been successful at all. The labs were the most densely populated area for the infected, and so was the place in the city that all of the survivors we had encountered actively avoided to stay alive. There was no sense in going there unless they wished for something terrible to happen, but for us, it was completely necessary. Myself, Pidge and Allura had family that we needed to find, and it was completely unavoidable if we ever wanted to see them again, be it that they were dead, or alive. Closure was the reason. Allura suspected that her father had perished since the last time she had attempted to get closer to the area. It had been months, and the chances of there being any survivors was low, but between the three of us, we had silently agreed that even finding a body would give us what we needed, as little as we wanted to think about the possibility of seeing the dead faces of those we loved.

The plan this time around was much more thought into than the others. We were going to take the roofs instead of the streets, and with many of the roads cleared of wreckage on the way there from my time spent with Lotor and his gang, there would be a much easier access to the buildings we needed to get to. After studying the infected for so long, Pidge had collated a lot of research that we could use to our advantage; they couldn’t see very well, but their hearing was boosted beyond what a living human was able to hear, and they didn’t have as much stamina as we had, meaning it was easier to outrun them if we needed to.

Of course, we knew that we would most definitely come into contact with them, but we were so prepared for an attack that it was unlikely that any of us were going to get hurt unless something went incredibly wrong. We had all become accustomed to our weapons of choice, and could all shoot a gun confidently, just in case. Hunk had fashioned himself several clubs, one of which, a baseball bat with nails hammered through it, was practically deadly with every swing. Pidge never got up close enough to use the stun gun she’d found in the street, but I had managed to teach her how to throw knives and shoot straight with a pistol in the time that I’d been with them. She had become quite a good shot too.

Allura used whatever weapon she could get her hands on, and fought like she’d lost her mind, becoming a blur of limbs that was deadly to anything it touched. It was actually really scary to watch, because if any of us were unfortunate enough to get in her way, we knew that it would be unlikely that she would be able to stop herself in time to prevent any injuries. That scared me a little bit, because the last thing we needed was a teammate who could hurt us when we already had so much trying to kill us as it was. I wasn’t the only one who was concerned, and so it was always a joint agreement that we would keep clear of Allura if anything came to a fight.

Lance, of course, had his guns. And I say guns, because he had too many to count by now. It started out as him collecting any he came across just for parts and ammunition, but it soon became an unhealthy obsession (which he would often try and compare to the knives I carried on my person at all times, which was completely wrong), and his room started to pile up with the amount that he had to choose from. Of course, his favourite was a pristine condition sniper rifle that he lovingly called ‘Blue’ for the paintwork he found it with. I was pretty sure that if it came to it, he would probably risk his life to save that damn gun.

Allura had me check over the castle’s inventory before we made any plans, which I did without question. We had enough to last us months from what we had gathered, but the real question here was whether we would last at the castle for that long. We needed to ensure that we had a way out of here, because there was most definitely a way out of the city that we had to find. We all know that we only had a short window of time before it became too dangerous for them to let anybody out, and very unlikely for anybody to come in and find us to get us out of here.

“We’re home,” Pidge announced as they finally got back later. Allura smiled slightly and handed them their rations as they sat down with us, and we all went through the loot they had found. “So, it looks like we’re gonna have to start going out further if we want to find anything. We’ve pretty much cleared this block of food and medical supplies.”

I frowned slightly. “We’ve got a safe place to sleep here, yet it’s getting too difficult to get anything to eat. Does that mean we’re gonna have to move?” I asked Allura. She hesitated and sighed a little before taking a seat opposite me.

“It’s a possibility if we don’t manage to find an answer in the labs… But for now, we have enough rations to last us for a while. Besides, everything we have here is much more luxurious than what others have, so staying might be the more… Comfortable option… in comparison,” She noted. “However, the sooner we can get the information, the sooner we’ll be able to get out of the city and to safety.”

It took us a few days to get our bearings and figure out a more solid plan than we already had, spending a few hours each night ruthlessly plotting maps in scruffy notebooks (I made sure to quickly hide my sketch book away before Allura found it and insisted on using it to plot her schematics onto, because I wasn’t going to waste months of work, whether it was to help us survive or not). After a week, we found ourselves preparing everything we could to leave the castle for what could have been the last time for some of us. I wasn’t going to deny that I was absolutely terrified, because the thought of getting killed out there was horrible, especially since I still had so many questions to ask and get answers to. I wanted to be able to get out of this hell hole and travel the world, I wanted to see Shiro again, and I wanted to finally be able to apologise to my foster parents for being such an awkward kid.

But most of all, I wanted a second chance at the things I had messed up on. I desperately needed to start the last couple of years over again, and part of me longed to be wanted and to be able to do what Shiro had done when he left for college; to go and meet new friends and go to parties and get drunk with strangers that would become some of the best friends in the world… I wanted to be a normal college kid, to fuck up and make the mistakes that people my age always made. I’d never been caught when I managed to sneak out at night, and the one time I got caught smoking around Shiro, he was completely cool with it. There was a part of me that felt the urge to rebel more than before, and get caught fucking things up, because that was what it was to be normal.

Maybe, just maybe, this apocalypse would be my way to start over again.

I pulled on my jacket, which was by this point, torn to shreds, but still functioned as I needed it to, and turned the collar up to protect my neck more. Tonight was the night. We were all about to find out what exactly it was that was causing all of this suffering, and my heart was hammering against my chest in anticipation of leaving. I had taken an hour to wash my face with cold water and try to calm my nerves by shakily drawing a picture of the fire in my room, but it had done little good, for when the time came for us to leave, I could feel my hands shaking even more than they were before.

We met in the kitchen to pack some supplies before Pidge set the security system up for the time we were away. It was rigged like she’d watched Home Alone about 40 times in the last 2 weeks, with enough traps to stop people from taking our supplies that we left behind, and to make sure that nothing got inside that we didn’t want to come home to. It gave us all a little relief in knowing that we’d be safe when we got home, or if we even made it far enough to thing about getting back safely.

“Ready?” Hunk asked me as I shoved the last of my supplies into my bag. I slung it over my shoulder and nodded, my shoulders tense from the anticipation. This was it.

“Come on, we don’t have much of an opening before the street gets too crowded,” Lance said as he loaded his gun. Pidge led us outside and locked the door, setting the first trigger for the traps as we all left the area, before joining us with a gun firmly held in her hand. 

Our first job was to climb to the roof of the building across the street, and finding a way up there was my job. The others waited behind as I crossed the road silently and walked down into the small side street to the left of it. Luckily, it was only a one storey building, so there was an easy way up if we climbed onto the outcropping vent outside. I scrambled up easily, pulling myself onto the roof and sitting back on my feet to catch my breath for a moment before looking around. There was a ladder that had been propped up onto the ledge of the roof, clearly for the purposes of getting up and down from the roof. I managed to lower it down without making too much noise and drawing attention to myself, and soon enough, the others had joined me.

We climbed up onto the second roof – there was a house next-door to the first, with an open window that we could easily reach. Again, I volunteered to go first, knowing that of all of us, I had the most experience of not being seen in situations like this, and that if there was anybody that could get in and out of here without causing too much damage, it was me. Inside was quiet, but the dull groan coming from the floor below was unnerving, and so I decided to glance down the stairs to check how many infected we would have to deal with before we could move on.

It was worse than I thought, not because of the number, but because of the identity of this person that had fallen to the virus. She turned to me, eyes dead, and let out a growl as she charged toward me, but I couldn’t do anything. She couldn’t have been older than 5, wearing a torn and dirty pink dress and one of her hands missing. The strength behind her attack was something I hadn’t expected, and she managed to knock me back onto the floor, jaw snapping as she tried to bite down at my shoulder. I placed my hand on her forehead and shoved her backward, causing her to stumble slightly before falling backwards down the stairs.

She landed, back first, on a banister at the bottom of the stairs, and with a snap, the house was clear of infected. I was almost sick, and took a few shaky breaths, because the realisation that I’d just killed a child was too much. But the house was clear. My team was safe. I had to forget about it. It was for the best anyway… or that was what I kept telling myself as we continued on through the buildings.


	17. 17 - Traitor

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 'I quickly threw the man I was trying to stop from chewing through my collar bone away from me and scrambled back to my feet, then plunged my knife into his throat before turning and sprinting back to Allura, who had been holding them off from getting to our temporary base in an abandoned chemist across the street.
> 
> “Y’know I told you about the guy,” I rushed as I dove into the broken window and pulled the pistol out of my belt, then kneeling just high enough to aim out of the window and help her hold them off. “Well I think that’s the source of the other gun shots,”'

The sky was the usual dull orange colour of sunrise by the time we made it to the outer block of the cleared area. The closer we got to the more densely infected portion of the city, the more nauseous I felt as I tried my best to stay on my feet and keep a straight face. It was obvious to the others that what had happened on the way had affected me, but I wasn’t about to let it stop us from potentially getting out of this hell. I wanted out. I wanted to find Shiro, and I wanted out. That was all.

If there was one person that seemed to understand that, it was Pidge. She knew deep down that if we were going to find Matt, he would be with Shiro. The two of us kept our hopes up, but not too much, because there was always the chance that all we would find was bodies. Of course, that wasn’t what we wanted, because we needed our families back, and thinking that way was probably not the best thing to be doing when we could potentially die at any moment. But it was a risk we had to take, because having the hope of them being alive and fighting against this like we were was a chance we wouldn’t find them at all.

There was a disgusting smell in the air as we reached the inner city, and I found myself silently heaving as we hopped from one roof to the next, trying my best not to bring up the remainder of my rations from before we left. Hunk had already thrown up twice at the smell, but seemed to have become immune to it after a while of putting up with the constant stench of rotting flesh for the last hour. Allura didn’t seem phased by it, but still looked disgusted by the state of the streets below us. The low groans of the infected blended into a chorus of voices that seemed like white noise around us as we made our way closer.

“There it is,” Allura whispered as we reached the last building. The building in question was a tall block of the university campus that had been built away from the rest of the buildings due to the questionable experiments that were always taking place inside. One of these had been an experiment to test the effects of artificial sedatives that were able to be pumped through the ventilation system of the building to temporarily put the workers under in case of an emergency.

This had been the experiment that Shiro had told me about on the day of the outbreak. The dangerous one that caused all of this. The replacement of the sedative in the ventilation caused those in the area to turn violent, and inevitably, cannibalistic. After first finding out about this, Pidge had told us that it would be unlikely that we would even find any survivors, but the increase of survivor activity in the area was an indication that she could be wrong. At that moment, there must have been hundreds of infected on the ground, and the fear was sickening. But what choice did we have? It was too late to back out now.

The building itself had fallen into a state of disrepair as we got close enough to see it properly. Practically all of the windows had been shattered, and part of the top of the building had collapsed on one side, leaving the top three floors on the fight side completely destroyed. In all honesty, it didn’t look like it was 100% safe to just stroll in, but we had a job to do, and a half-collapsed building was not going to stop any of us from doing it. Instead of doing what any sane person would do, we started to make our way down to the ground; toward the most dangerous part of the city.

There were gunshots that we had been able to hear as we got closer about half an hour before, but now that we were in the infected district, they had only got louder, indicating that there was an immediate threat around us. I looked around at the rest of the group, seeing how each of them had all drawn their weapons upon hearing the noises, and I instinctively did the same. With the familiar feeling of my knife in my hand, my anxiety calmed slightly, the tight coil putting pressure on my chest suppressing the tiniest amount, hardly noticeable, but helping me to keep calm as we made our way toward the opening out onto the street.

If I thought the streets back in the open were bad, here, they were almost impossible to traverse. The number of rotting bodies – or body parts – was sickening, but it made the source of the smell in the area very obvious. I stuck close to Lance as we slowly made our way forward, knowing that he was probably the only good shot other that Allura, and that he would be able to keep any infected away from a distance while I took out those up close. It was a good system, and thankfully, for about 20 minutes, we managed to keep them far enough away that my skills in close combat were not needed.

Of course, that was before the hoard of them appeared, along with a few dreadfully familiar faces. I had been wrestling a rotted body away from my neck when I saw Lotor again, and I immediately felt my stomach drop at the thought of him wanting revenge for me leaving. Why did I always get myself into these kinds of positions? I quickly threw the man I was trying to stop from chewing through my collar bone away from me and scrambled back to my feet, then plunged my knife into his throat before turning and sprinting back to Allura, who had been holding them off from getting to our temporary base in an abandoned chemist across the street.

“Y’know I told you about the guy,” I rushed as I dove into the broken window and pulled the pistol out of my belt, then kneeling just high enough to aim out of the window and help her hold them off. “Well I think that’s the source of the other gun shots,”

“He’s here?” She asked as she emptied another clip into the hoard that were, thankfully, storming toward the outer districts and had not noticed us as well. “Shit. Keith, get back out there and find Hunk, tell him that I need him back here as soon as possible,”

Without hesitation, I nodded and shot back outside to go and find him. In the blur of movement, it was difficult to see much, but the familiar bright coloured shirt Hunk had been wearing earlier caught my eye after a moment of scanning the area. I ran toward it, ducking under the grabby hands of the infected that were running toward me and managing to avoid most of them, with an exception of one or two that I had to deal with on the way. I tore through the crowd, lashing my knife out at any of them that tried to attack and managing to keep them off me for the time being, and kept heading toward the flash of yellow that I could occasionally see between them.

Only when I got there, all I found was the sleeve of the shirt, and no Hunk.

My stomach dropped as I was pulled by my arm out of the street and into a building. At first, I thought it was Lance, or Pidge, but when I was slammed against the wall and held about a foot off the ground, I knew that this was no friend. The familiar blue-black hair of one of my old companions and the bloodshot blue eyes that stared into my soul was not exactly the best sight to cross my eyes in the last few weeks.

“Where is Ezor you piece of shit?” Acxa asked toughly, her grip on my throat loosened a little so I could speak, but that didn’t stop me from struggling against her to try and wriggle free of her unusually strong grip. “Kogane you had better start fucking talking or you’ll never speak to your friends again-“

“Acxa get off me-“

“Acxa, put the poor kid down, I think he gets it already,” Zethrid’s voice came from nowhere, but I could feel the looming presence in the dark room. Acxa glared at me for a moment longer before letting me go without warning and watching as I crumpled to the floor.

“Tell me where she is,” She demanded as I tried to pull myself to my feet. I didn’t know what to say. I couldn’t just tell her that I’d killed her, because I was pretty sure that she’d kill me without hesitating. I opened my mouth to speak and closed it again, only to see her determined expression fade. “… She’s dead, isn’t she?”

I hesitated, but nodded as I looked up. Her face fell more. “I’m sorry, Acxa-“

“Did she die quickly?” She asked in a shaky voice. I closed my eyes but nodded. “Is she one of them-“

I shook my head quickly. “No… She was shot.” I told her. “I… My friends and I buried her near the park on the other side of the city. She had a proper send off, I promise.”

Under the front that Acxa put on, it was always clear how much she cared about Ezor. They had always been close; close enough that now, as I still sat crumpled to the floor after being dropped, she had tears in her eyes. I looked around the room for a moment, only to find Zethrid stood in the doorway, looming over me as I got to my feet and looking at her companion with worry and sadness present in her usually cold eyes.

“… Not like you’ll care much… But we just lost Narti too.” Acxa told me in a quiet voice, almost inaudible over the noise from outside. “Lotor… Lotor thought she was leaking you information,”

“Sliced her in half, pretty much,” Zethrid told me as she walked into the room more. I frowned slightly. That left only the two of them and Lotor.

“I’m sorry,” I told them honestly. “We lost one of ours on the day Ezor died too,” I mentioned quietly. Acxa nodded and sat down against the door sadly.

“KEITH!” My head snapped around as I heard Lance’s distressed cry from the roof above me. It sounded like there was a struggle, and without even thinking, I shot to the stairs, blade in one hand and gun in the other to go and see what was happening.

When I got to the roof, Lance was being held by the throat, gun kicked out of his reach, and pressed to the floor right by the edge. My eyes widened, at the sight of none other than Lotor holding him there, a wicked smile on his face and his eyes slightly clouded as he kept his own face just inches away from Lance’s. My grip tightened on the handle of the blade, and I shakily lifted the gun to aim at Lotor’s head. He still hadn’t noticed I was stood there, but I didn’t trust myself enough to shoot him without hitting Lance; my hands were shaking way too much for the bullet to fly straight, and so instead of shooting like I initially planned, I shoved the gun back into my belt and rushed over to him.

At least, that was my plan.

There was a sudden sharp pain in my right shoulder and I stumbled back, away from the impact, looking down at the source of the pain only to find my shirt stained with the sickening crimson of my own blood. It hurt. It hurt more than anything had ever hurt me in my entire life, but something was keeping me standing, and I wasn’t going to back down that easily. I stumbled further toward them as I felt the blood seeping out of the wound and staining my shirt, and was more prepared as Lotor fired a second shot at me, managing to just move out of its way so that it only grazed my arm slightly.

“Traitor!” He screamed, shooting again, much more recklessly now, and completely missing me each time the bullet left the chamber of the gun. “Just. Fucking. Die!”

I raised the gun again, pressing the barrel to his temple, and he froze to the spot. “Give me one reason I shouldn’t blow your fucking brains out right now, Lotor.” I demanded, gritting my teeth through the pain in my shoulder from the wound that was throbbing as I raised my arm. Lotor looked insane, but my threat didn’t make him lose his grip on Lance’s throat. Instead, he seemed to tighten it, causing Lance to claw desperately at his hand to try and get some much-needed air.

“You want me to let the pretty one go, Kogane?” Lotor started to laugh a little as he looked down at Lance again. “The you’ll come with us,”

“Let him go,” I snapped, loading the gun properly and pressing it against his head again. “Or I’ll fucking shoot-“

“Do it,” He taunted. “Shoot me, Keith. Shoot me straight here,” He turned his head, so the barrel of the gun was pointed between his eyes.

“What are you-“

“Shoot me like you shot Ezor, Keith,” My stomach dropped, but Lotor still hadn’t let Lance go. “Touchy subject? Go on… Kill me and save your friend-“

I pulled the trigger without a second thought.


	18. 18 - Maniac

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> '“You’re a maniac, has anybody ever told you that?” He asked as he helped me to my feet. I nodded once in response, causing him to roll his eyes slightly. “A maniac who just saved my life… Thank you, Keith…”
> 
> “Don’t mention it,”'

_1 year ago_

“Keith, come on. You know there’s no point in putting it off, the later you are on your first day the worse you’ll feel,” Shiro called from the kitchen. I groaned and tuned the alarm off that was blaring out of my phone before face planting the pillow again and turning over. He was right, but fuck getting up. I was warm, bundled up in my blankets in the usual crease of my bed that I slept in every night, and there was nothing that was going to get me out of the warm to go somewhere unfamiliar. “Hey, get up. I made you breakfast,”

Or maybe there was one thing.

It took me a few minutes to pull myself out of bed, but upon smelling freshly cooked bacon, I soon shot out from my cocoon of warmth and into the kitchen toward the source of the smell. Shiro was already for work, and shot me a wide smile as he plated up our breakfast and set it down in front of the two spots at the kitchen table. Shiro rarely cooked this much food for breakfast, but for him, the day was important enough that he had gone all out. He’d only been waiting for 2 years for this, anyway.

“You look happy to be alive this morning,” Matt said as he walked in, still half asleep with his shirt buttoned up wrong. I grumbled and started eating, keeping my head down. He snorted and walked up to Shiro, leaning on him casually as the taller man wrapped an arm around his waist.

“Did you get dressed in the dark?” Shiro asked him. Matt looked down at his shirt and sighed, quickly unbuttoning it and fastening it back up properly without missing any buttons this time.

“Your light bulb blew this morning,” He argued grumpily, and Shiro laughed a little, setting some more food onto an extra plate and handing it to him.

“Can you two be gross and couple-y somewhere else? I want to keep my food down,” I complained as I shoved an entire slice of bacon into my mouth. Shiro flicked my ear. “What was that for?”

“For being moody. What time do you start?” He asked. I looked at the clock.

“I have like, 3 hours yet. I don’t see why you woke me up so early. I could have slept another 2 hours,” I argued. Matt sat down in the seat next to me and started to eat his food. “You realise how important my sleep is, right?”

Shiro chuckled and sipped his coffee. “Yeah, well so is you getting to college on time, and we both know you take longer than an hour to get ready on a good day,” He ruffled my hair and I shoved his hand away grumpily.

Shiro and Matt had been together for a few months officially now, and although it was annoying with them always being attached to one another by the hip, I enjoyed having more company around the apartment.  Sometimes, when Matt stayed for a few nights in a row, he would invite his sister over and the four of us would always end up in a very competitive Mario Kart tournament that Shiro and I would always lose to the Holt siblings. Even thought losing sucked, it wasn’t bad, and those nights always turned to early morning before I knew it.

“Are you nervous?” Matt asked quietly as he watched me push some of my food around my plate. I shrugged.

“When am I not nervous?” I asked sarcastically. Shiro snorted and shook his head. “There’s just a lot of people, that’s all.”

“Altea isn’t that bad, I promise. If we got through it alive then you’ll more than make it,” Shiro assured me. “Just don’t go near anybody wearing the school jersey unless you want to be bugged to join the football team for the rest of your life,”

“And that worked for you?” I questioned, raising an eyebrow slightly. “You two were the most popular people in your class, don’t even try to tell me I’ll be okay when I can hardly talk to people as it is,”

“But you can fight them if they start shit. I couldn’t. I had to rely on your brother,” Matt pointed out. I shrugged again. He had a point.

“Right… I’m gonna go and get ready then I guess,” I excused myself as I stood from my chair and headed back into my room silently.

“Keith?”

“What?”

“You’ve got my number if you need it. Anyone starts anything, or you feel uncomfortable and I’ll be there in ten minutes, okay?” Shiro asked. I smiled. “You’ll make friends, Keith. It might just take some time. If you’re really that worried, put it to the back of your mind, it’ll happen when you least expect it to,”

 

_Present Day_

God. If I knew how right he was back then, maybe I wouldn’t have laughed in his face.

When I fired the gun, I knew that things were going to go one of two ways. Either the bullet would land in Lotor’s head and it would all be over, or he would find some way to get out of it like he always did. The man was always a snake, and I hated that he had such an easy way out of his problems. If anything, I was envious. I wanted that. I wished that I had such an easy life, because so far, it had all been one giant fucking shitstorm and I hated it.

_Click._

“Very funny, Kogane.” Lotor said with a chuckle. I pulled the trigger again and again. _Click. Click. Click._

“How-“

“My guess is that my generals are stealthier than you would like to admit,” Lotor smirked and tightened his grip around Lance’s throat. “Such a shame to waste such beautiful blue eyes, isn’t it, Keith?”

I felt my blood boil. “Take your filthy hands off him-“

“I told you. You’d have to kill me first,” He snapped. “You either come with us, or I take the pretty blue one,”

My stomach dropped. Lance looked desperate, legs still flailing around in an attempt to free himself from Lotor’s grip, and his fingers clawing at the man’s hands. It was a stalemate. If I left, they’d kill me, and if I stayed, they’d kill Lance – or worse. I dropped my gun and held my hands up hesitantly, looking at Lance with apologetic eyes as Lotor finally let him go and got to his feet with a smirk.

“I’ll go. Just... Leave them alone. All of them,” I lowered my head a little as I heard Lotor’s footsteps moving closer again. “And if you even touch him again, I’ll fucking kill you-“

“Silence.” He snapped, bringing his hand harshly across my face I flinched slightly, but stood straight again immediately. “You chose well, Kogane. But you have to pay for what you’ve done somehow…”

“Keith-“

“Silence the blue one,” Lotor ordered Acxa as she made her way to the roof. I watched in horror as she strode over to him and bound his mouth, so he couldn’t speak. Zethrid closed her hand around my upper arm tightly, squeezing just below the fresh wound in my arm. I could see red. I couldn’t stop myself from struggling against her grip, but with every slight movement came another surge of pain from the wound and another cry out in agony as I tried to escape and get Lance to safety.

Lance looked terrified, his eyes wide as though he had been caught in the headlights of a truck on the highway. I wasn’t going to just sit there and ignore that. I turned the knife in my hand and roughly stabbed it into Zethrid’s thigh, causing her to release my arm as she moved to put pressure on it with a cry. Acxa and Lotor stood between myself and Lance, but that wouldn’t be a problem. I charged forward and shoved Acxa toward the edge of the roof violently, where she stumbled back and tumbled down onto the next rooftop about 8 feet below. Lotor stood and pulled his gun back out, aiming it straight at me as he moved into a better defensive position.

“Do it, Lotor. Kill your last chance of finding what you want,” I taunted. He looked slightly conflicted for a moment before hesitantly lowering the gun. “If you want information, you give him to me. You want to live once I’ve given it to you, then you’d better be a good runner,”

After more hesitation, Lotor pulled Lance to his feet and shoved him toward me, sending him stumbling over and collapsing by my feet. With Zethrid’s grip on my arm now gone, I crouched down and helped him sit up, removing the rag from his mouth so he could talk again. Lotor stood up straighter and watched for a moment, never taking his eyes off Lance. From down in the street, I could hear the shouting from Hunk and Pidge as they desperately tried to hold back the hoard of infected that had tried to storm them as they pushed forwards. It was only a matter of time before someone got hurt, and it was all Lotor’s fault that I couldn’t be down there to stop it.

“Keith, you’ve gotta help them-“ Lance begged quietly. I shook my head. Hunk would kill me if anything happened to Lance, and I was pretty sure that Pidge wouldn’t be too impressed either. He was the glue that was holding us together, and I couldn’t let him disappear.

“You’re coming with me,” I muttered. Lance stopped talking and looked confused. “So what do you want form me, Lotor? Did I take something of yours? Did I breech your stupid fucking security when I escaped?”

“You know full well what you did, Kogane.” He spoke through gritted teeth. “I want that map,”

“Shame you didn’t think about directions when you got your dumbass dad to cart you around the city with all that money, isn’t it?” I mocked. His jaw set as I spoke. “Wouldn’t he be proud huh? His own son cant even get an orphan to speak-“

“Shut up!” He yelled, firing the gun again and letting the bullet sink into the concrete by my side. “Fine. Take the boy. I’ll find another way there. I don’t need anybody telling me how to do things, least of all, you.” He snapped.

It was a long few seconds before he stormed off, jumped down onto the next roof and sprinted toward Acxa, who had been waiting for their next move to be announced. Zethrid followed after one long glare at us, and then, we were alone. I let my guard down, tears brimming in my eyes as I tried to stop my arm from hurting, but it didn’t work. Lance rushed to try and bandage it with the few supplies we had brought with us, but it didn’t do much good. With a little pressure, the bleeding slowed slightly, and I silently thanked him with a small smile.

“You’re a maniac, has anybody ever told you that?” He asked as he helped me to my feet. I nodded once in response, causing him to roll his eyes slightly. “A maniac who just saved my life… Thank you, Keith…”

“Don’t mention it,” I insisted, having to lean on him slightly as he helped me over to the edge of the roof where he had been shooting from before. It looked like complete chaos down there, but we couldn’t do anything but provide as much cover to the others as we could from the roof. I moved to head for the stairs again, but Lance stopped me before I could stand.

“You’ll bleed out if you try and fight any more than you already have, Mullet. Sit down, try and stay still and help me cover them from up here,” He insisted. I hated that he was right. I felt so useless.

“Maybe just this once, I’ll take a backseat…” I muttered, grabbing the spare scope from Lance’s bag and using it to look through to see down onto the streets easier. Pidge had been evading hits for a while, and it was clear from the exhausted look on her face, and Hunk looked tired too. The pair of them were practically covered in blood, some of it may have been their own, but it wasn’t clear from where we were sat.

Allura seemed the least beat up of the three of them, and it was clear that she hadn’t been fighting for half as long. The pile of bodies that had slowly accumulated in the street was almost as high as the truck next to it by now, and the hoard had started to slow as dark started to draw closer.

An hour passed, and we stayed put, contacting the others through the radio to let them know of our position so they could come and find us, and after another, we found ourselves still waiting anxiously for some form of contact with them. I felt my eyes drifting closed as I leaned on Lance for some support, trying desperately to stay awake so I wouldn’t bleed out in my sleep. I’d been an idiot, and I just wished that Shiro had been there to tell me that. My eyes closed unwillingly.

 

Silence.

Lots of silence.

Dark.

“I’ve got you, just keep breathing, Keith.”

Mind tricks.

“… Shiro?”


	19. 19 - Together Again

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> '“You have no idea how happy I would be to plunge a knife straight into that asshole’s face,” I muttered. Shiro chuckled softly.
> 
> “Zombies haven’t changed you,” He said simply.
> 
> “They just made his obsession for knives reasonable,” Matt added.'

“What happened to him?”

“Shot by the hair guy… he was trying to save me…”

I groaned as I tried to open my eyes, only to see a blur of light above me. Where the fuck was I?

“I’ll get a medical scanner running… Does anybody have spare bandages? And a _CLEAN_ needle for stitches please?!”

The voices were familiar, and yet I had no idea who was talking. I just kept my eyes half closed, because they felt heavy enough as it was, and I didn’t feel like I had the energy to do any more than I was doing already.

More movement.

More voices.

I waited. I wanted answers, but I couldn’t speak. I felt like I was drifting in and out of consciousness – I could have been, but the memory of the next day or so was only vague. I’d lost a lot of blood. Had it not been for a rush of adrenaline and the sheer willpower to save a member of my team, I would have probably died just after Lotor’s escape onto the next roof. In hindsight, I was grateful for him being an ass just so that I had the chance to get Lance away from him while still in one piece. It was a miracle. I was still breathing and there was no chance of me being thrown out as food for the infected unless I decided to stop trying to survive.

I winced slightly as I felt someone putting pressure against the gunshot wound in my shoulder, but as I opened my eyes, I guessed that I had to have been dreaming. Initially, I thought it was Pidge. But Pidge didn’t have a scar on her face, nor did she have hair that long. I couldn’t put the pieces together as I lay there, semi-conscious and gritted my teeth through the pain of them trying to fix up my wounds properly. The pain became too much, and I slipped into unconsciousness again before I could look around properly.

“… Is he awake?”

“Lance this is the third time in the last hour-“

“But is he?” I groaned slightly as I tried to sit up. My head hurt like a bitch.

“Keith!” Pidge rushed to my side and tried to make me lie down again. “You can’t get up yet, Matt says you need to sleep off the sedatives-“

“Matt?” I asked, confused. “Did I hit my head too?”

Pidge shook her head. “No… After you passed out, Matt showed up and used this robot to get the hoard to stop attacking us. You collapsed and Shiro-“

I froze. It wasn’t a dream.

“Shiro?” I asked in disbelief. Pidge nodded. “Where is he?”

“Resting… He wasn’t exactly in one piece when we found him… he lost his arm Keith…” I frowned, but tried to sit up again. “Keith-“

“I need to see my brother,” I snapped. I took a look around the unfamiliar room. “Where are we?”

“At the hospital… Matt and Shiro have been holed up here for months, along with a load of other survivors who needed medical supplies. The place is still packed with everything we need, and we think we could make it a new base until more news of a rescue team comes in through the radio,” Lance said softly. He had been sat in the chair next to the hospital bed I was lying in; the bags under his eyes darker than I’d ever seen them before and his hair a mess. He was still smiling through it all though. Just like Lance always did.

“Lance…” I sat back. “Are you-“

“I’m good… You saved me, remember?” He said softly with that familiar smile that only he could pull off. “I’d be dead without you being the reckless asshole we know and love,”

“What’s all this about my baby brother being a reckless asshole?” My head shot up and toward the door, toward the source of the sound. Shiro stood half in view from where I lay, looking tired and beat up, but alive.

“Sh-Shiro…” I barely whispered as my eyes filled with tears. I tried to get up, only for Lance to gently stop me by pushing my uninjured shoulder back down gently. Shiro smiled, hobbling into the room carefully with a crutch under his left arm. My eyes widened as he drew closer.

His right arm was not real.

“I thought you were-“

“What happened to your arm?” I managed out in barely a whisper. Shiro’s gaze shifted to his prosthetic that had been mostly bandaged to cover it. It was very clear that this wasn’t a standard grade prosthetic limb – it almost looked robotic.

“I… It’s a long story… One I shouldn’t be telling you until you’re rested and back to your usual self,” He told me, sitting down in the chair on the opposite side of the bed to Lance. It almost didn’t feel real; like it was a hallucination from the sedative, or that I’d died, and this was just what you saw afterwards. “You look like shit,”

“Speak for yourself,” I joked, relaxing a little now that he had sat down. “But seriously… How did you even get out of the lab? Apparently, it was a nightmare in there…”

Shiro sighed, but answered anyway, no matter how reluctant he looked. “It was hell… Matt and I were working upstairs at the time, trying to finish the adjustments to our project before lunch so we could get home early. We knew something was wrong before the alarms went off downstairs… The Galra labs are in the basement, which is where they test cures for diseases and those kind of things… Well, we could hear the head of department yelling, something about an experimental failure. That was all we needed to hear before we left…”

Matt walked into the room as Shiro was speaking, carrying a tray of rations and setting them down on the table. “We managed to grab our project and get to Shiro’s car before the worst of it hit us. We could hear the alarms as we got outside, but we didn’t stick around for too long to find out whether anybody was dead,” He continued quietly. “The traffic heading out of the city was so bad that we had to abandon the car and run to the nearest place that was taking people. We got here just in time, but Shiro… He got grabbed in the crowd and they got the back of his hand... We got inside, and they locked to doors, and then the barricades went up. Shiro was rushed straight to surgery and they amputated his arm to stop any spread of infection. It worked…”

“Holy shit…” Lance muttered his eyes wide. “So, you guys were right there? And there was nothing you could do to stop anything? Nothing anybody could do?”

Shiro shook his head. “The lab that released the virus was a colleague’s who we didn’t exactly get along with... His father owns the lab, so they always had the highest budget and got prioritised when it came to schedules. His name was Lotor. Bastard-“

“Lotor?” I said weakly. My face paled.

“Yes, Lotor. And I’m assuming by that face that you know him?” He asked. I nodded slightly, then looked at the would in the shoulder. Shiro’s jaw set. “That bastard-“

“Allura has it covered,” Pidge assured. “She’s been using the computers in the hospital with me and Hunk to hack the CCTV cameras around the city that are still working. We reckon he might have a solution to all of this, but even if he doesn’t, I’m sure you guys would enjoy ending him anyway,”

“You have no idea how happy I would be to plunge a knife straight into that asshole’s face,” I muttered. Shiro chuckled softly.

“Zombies haven’t changed you,” He said simply.

“They just made his obsession for knives reasonable,” Matt added.

We spent a few days recovering. I had slept the sedative off after just a few hours, but I had no energy to get out of my bed and walk around. Instead, Shiro insisted on bringing a spare bed into the room and staying with me. I silently wondered whether he was thinking the same as I was; did he think all this was a dream too? Whatever it was, knowing that my brother was just across the room, just like he had been when we were younger, was comforting, and the both of us slept soundly.

The process of my arm healing took a while, and it irritated me more than anything. I wasn’t able to help with any of the routine checks downstairs in the carparks to clear them out because I couldn’t use a knife, and just moving my arm hurt like hell. In the end, Lance offered to teach me to shoot properly, making sure that I had plenty of ammo and that the gun was loaded, as he mocked me for my feeble attempts at shooting in the past. His offer to teach me seemed more like a subtle attempt at freeing some time where the two of us could blow off some steam and have friendly competition without risking our lives completely.

There was a large grate which was holding the infected outside of the carpark, but there was always a risk of them getting through. Patrols usually checked the locks every day and took a few out that had got too close, and luckily for us, the day we decided to go down for target practice was relatively quiet. Lance led me down with an old BB gun on his shoulder, which he had found in one of the rooms where some kids had been before they had died a few months back. Not wanting to waste and actual ammo on some target practice, we grabbed a gun each and decided to use practice ammo in the form of BB pellets, although there was still a very real gun strapped to Lance’s back just in case.

“So you have this thing were you kinda forget to reload,” Lance told him as he set his BB gun and a box of pellets on a plastering table that he had set up. Directly in front of us from where we stood was another table, similar, but with several empty cans arranged on it. I scowled at him and he laughed. “I’m kidding, although you’re gonna need to load that thing up before we start.”

“You really gonna reach me how to use a gun from the basics and up, huh?” I asked. Lance smiled and nodded as he started to load his gun carefully. I copied him in a content silence, then listened as he explained everything, from how to hold the gun correctly, to breathing techniques. I never thought the art of killing something with a bullet would be so complex, but everything he showed me made a difference.

We practiced until I had managed to hit every target (the crudely placed cans on the table against the wall), and then decided to do a little moving target practice. This was more me throwing cans in the air and Lance shooting them down before they hit the floor again, but it was surprisingly fun to watch as he struck ridiculous poses before trying to hit them. After a while, the guns were discarded, and the training turned into more of a competition where we had to keep the can in the air using only our feet. After an hour, we felt so exhausted from just laughing at one another that we had to make our way back up to the main area of the hospital anyway.

Shiro stopped me on the way back inside, insisting that I take a walk with him around the corridors while he did his rounds to help Matt. Although this wouldn’t have usually been something I’d do, I agreed. Mainly because I wanted to make up for as much time as I could that I had missed out on while Shiro was missing, but also because I could tell there was something he wanted to tell me. As we were walking down a particularly quiet corridor, he finally started speaking.

“So,” He said, readjusting the crutch under his arm so it was more comfortable to walk with. “Good time training earlier?”

I raised an eyebrow. “How did you know about that?” I asked him. He shrugged slightly.

“I asked Pidge where you were, and she said Lance took you down to the parking level,” He said casually. I nodded a little. Shiro’s lips curled into a smirk. “So… You and Lance-“

“It’s not like that,” I told him quickly, feeling my face flush slightly at his suggestion. He chuckled. “Shiro I’m not kidding, it isn’t. We’re just-“

“Friends?” He asked with a soft smile. “Hate to say I told you so, kid, but I-“

“I know… But you don’t get bragging rights until we all get out of the city alive, got that?” Shiro snorted and nudged my uninjured arm slightly.

“I know you better than you think I do, Keith. I might look like an idiot, but I can see that ‘friends’ is hardly what you want out of this,” He said quietly.

I slowed. He didn’t.

 _Thanks, Shiro_. I thought to myself. _Now I’m doubting that too._


	20. 20 - Stupid

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> '“You should probably tell him before one of you dies, y’know Lance…” Pidge told him quietly. I heard Lance sigh and the dip in the bed next to me disappeared. “You might not have long. You should make the most of it,”'

“No. I am not wearing that,”

“C’mon Keith, it’ll be funny,” Lance whined as he held out the medical clothes that we had found while exploring the hospital. With nothing better to do after we’d eaten that evening, Lance and I had decided that the best thing we could do was to look around for something to keep us occupied for a while. Of course, there was only so much a hospital could offer to us, and so here we were, both squeezed into a tiny storage cupboard, looking for anything that could take our minds off what was happening outside.

I took the clothes and pushed him out of the way, discarding the awful blue clothes and pulling the hair net and gloves on, then giving him a blank stare. “Am I funny yet?” I asked in a deadpan voice. Surprisingly, Lance seemed to find it at least a little amusing, because he spent the next 10 minutes pulling pieces of my hair through the holes in the hairnet in random places. I couldn’t even see my reflection and I knew I looked like an idiot.

“We should scare Pidge and Hunk-“

“With our current situation? No thanks, I don’t want to be shot again,” I told him simply. Since the incident, my shoulder hadn’t healed up much, but it didn’t hurt so much anymore. The pain medication that Matt was keeping me dosed up on helped, but I’d managed to convince him to half the dose, so we would have enough to last us for as long as we could.  

“Is it just me, or does this feel normal now?” Lance asked as we started to tidy up. I gave him a confused look, encouraging him to go on. “Well… This time a year ago, we probably wouldn’t have spoken to each other at all unless we had to… But now I can safely say I know you better than most people do…”

I smiled slightly, shoving the remaining clothes back into the box they had came from. “I guess so… Although I don’t think I’ll ever get used to the fucking zombies,” Lance laughed slightly. “But You’re right… If all this shit hadn’t happened, we probably would never have been friends, or even spoke to each other,”

It was a strange thought, knowing that if one person hadn’t turned up for work on the day of the outbreak, that we wouldn’t have known each other as anything other than acquaintances. I would have never found the friends I had learned to rely on, and I’d probably still be lying in my bed in Shiro’s apartment, staring at the ceiling and wishing that something interesting would happen to me. Sometimes, I thought that I should have been more careful about what I was wishing for, because I got what I asked for in the end. Even if it wasn’t as I expected it, it was change nonetheless.

“Hey Keith?” Lance almost whispered as I turned to leave the room. I paused. “In a way, I’m glad this happened…”

I smiled softly at him. “I hate myself for saying it, but me too, Lance…”

We didn’t do much for a few days; in fact, it was probably the quietest 4 days we had seen since the outbreak. It was a very comfortable rest that we had to give ourselves, to rest up and clear our heads before we could find any more problems that we were likely to encounter again. This meant, of course, that time to ourselves became much more common, and I felt a great sense of relief in knowing that I didn’t have to keep risking my life for much longer. Although we were living in a hospital, with lots of sick people whose health was slowly deteriorating around us, it almost felt like a big family. Now that Shiro was back to wind me up at any opportunity, it almost felt normal again.

Of course, before I never had to deal with the cloud in my mind that Lance McClain had created since we wound up surviving by each other’s side. This cloud was much more difficult to deal with alone when Shiro wouldn’t stop bugging me about it, and no matter how much I tried to deny that I felt anything other than friendship in the relationship we had built, I knew deep down that Shiro was probably right. He was always right, although I hated to admit it.

Since the incident with Lotor, I had been suffering with terrible nightmares. I’d wake in the night in a cold sweat, shooting up and grabbing my knife to defend myself as though the man was in the room, only to find that I was alone. The hospital was never completely silent, but the lack of noise didn’t calm me like I thought it would. It didn’t seem right to be somewhere so safe while outside, there waited an army of dead people that had an acquired taste for flesh and enjoyed playing chase with strangers way too much.

One night, after a particularly bad dream that had be sat against the wall in my bed, clutching my chest with one hand, knife in the other and dripping with sweat, I head something. Footsteps. I stayed curled in the corner as I desperately tried to calm myself before anybody saw, but of course, that would have been too good to be true.

“Keith, you okay? I head you screaming…” Hunk’s voice was soft and understanding as he poked his head into the room. I immediately felt a little calmer, because of all people to turn up while I was having a mild panic attack because of my dreams, Hunk was the person I would have wanted there. He knew how to calm people easily, and he radiated this sense of happiness and ease that made me feel more comfortable.

“Nightmare,” I muttered simply, hoping it was explanation enough for waking him up at such a bad time. He simply sat down on the side of my bed silently, waiting for me to go on. “I… See things that have happened. Sometimes things that could happen. I just- I didn’t mean to wake you up,” I told him honestly. He smiled slightly.

“Don’t worry about it. We all get them,” He assured me. “Although your screaming kinda made me think you were being attacked,”

“Sorry… It won’t happen again,” I promised him as I pulled the covers up around my shoulders to keep the cold out.

“Y’know you don’t have to sit in here on your own all night,” Hunk said softly. “We could wheel you into our room if you wanted us to… We’re only down the hall and there’s enough room. Lance and Pidge won’t mind anyway,”

“I don’t want to be a bother, it was only a nightmare,” I insisted. Hunk sighed.

“Well, if you change your mind you know where we are… Do you want anything before I go back to bed? You got water and everything?” I nodded in response and gestured to the water bottle on the table next to the bed. Hunk smiled. “Right… Feel free to wheel round if you want some company. We haven’t been to sleep yet,”

I smiled as he left, then let the curl to my lips fall as I was left alone again. The offer was in kind spirit, but I couldn’t keep relying on them to help me through the things that I saw as very trivial. Nightmares? Sure, they scared the shit out of me and left me feeling uneasy for a while, but I had been having them for much longer than they knew; even before the outbreak I would wake like I had that night, in a cold sweat after having to run away from my fears and not quite making it. It was completely normal for me to scare myself that badly.

But, as much as I hated to admit it, I didn’t feel like I could stay on my own that night. I didn’t want to be on my own. The light from the window left eerie shadows in the room that reminded me of the monsters in my dreams, and I wanted to avoid them at all costs. After a moment of collecting my thoughts, I climbed out of the bed and took the breaks off the wheels, then proceeded to start wheeling it out of the room.

The room Pidge, Lance and Hunk were staying in was just down the hall, past Shiro and Matt’s room, and past the rooms of a few other survivors that we had taken in since we arrived at the hospital. Trying not to disturb anybody, I pushed the bed into the doors to open them and didn’t even say anything as I set the brakes back once I had it in the right place in the room. Lance looked up from the pile of blankets in the corner that he had nestled himself in, a confused expression on his face, but instead of explaining myself, I just wordlessly climbed onto my bed and pulled the blankets over myself.

Thankfully, nobody said anything about me turning up. In fact, the quiet conversations continued between the three of them as though I had never entered the room. After a while, I turned over and pretended to sleep, letting my breathing even out and not reacting to anything that they said. I didn’t want to be a bother, but the company – just knowing I wasn’t on my own – was going to help me get through the night.

After a while, I felt the bed dip next to me. “Is he asleep?” I heard Pidge ask, her voice quiet so not to disturb me.

“Yeah…” Lance replied, much closer to me now than he had been before. “He’s out of it… He must have been exhausted. I don’t think I’ve ever seen him that peaceful when he’s been asleep,”

“Yeah, and you know all about that, don’t you, Lance?” Hunk muttered. It was pretty soon followed up with a soft “Ow!” Which I assumed was him being hit with a pillow.

"It's been like, 2 times that it's happened Hunk. Don't take it out of context like that," Lance defended. I felt a small smile curl onto my face as I realised what he was talking about.

“You should probably tell him before one of you dies, y’know Lance…” Pidge told him quietly. I heard Lance sigh and the dip in the bed next to me disappeared. “You might not have long. You should make the most of it,”

“It’s not that easy,” The sound of covers being shifted around almost muffled what he was saying, but I could still make it out relatively well. “I don’t even know if I actually like him. How am I supposed to tell if I have a real crush on someone, Hunk?”

I froze up, trying not to make it obvious that I had heard what he had said and that I was very much awake. _Fuck, was this even real?_ I thought to myself. _Did he really just say that out loud from his stupid face?_

“Well… I read somewhere that if they get a haircut and you still like them, it’s a crush,” He stated simply. Pidge laughed slightly, and Lance sighed, presumably throwing another pillow at him.

“You really think you could get Keith Kogane to cut his hair? Do you know how long he’s been growing that mullet for?” Pidge asked. I tried not to let the smile on my face show too much. _Traitor._ I thought. _You told me it wasn’t a mullet._ But unconsciously, I felt myself take a lock of my hair that was close to my hand between my fingers and think for a moment.

What if-

Yes. This would be the perfect opportunity.

I left it a few days before doing anything about it. I didn’t want it to seem obvious that I had heard the conversation the three of them had been having, so instead of treating their morning conversation with familiarity the next day, I kept a confused expression on my face. It worked like a charm, because it was very clear than none of them had a clue that I’d actually heard everything.

So, 4 days later, I stood in front of the full-length mirror in the bathroom, a pair of scissors in my hand and the comb that had been hiding in the bottom of my bag for months without any use. If I was going to do this, I’d do it properly. I’d cut my hair before, of course, so it wasn’t like I didn’t know what I was doing, but that didn’t mean I wasn’t nervous about it. What if I looked like an idiot?

At the end of it all, I wasn’t just doing this to see how Lance would react. I was doing it so that nothing would grab my damn hair if we got into a fight. It was in the way. Long hair always got people killed in the movies Shiro and I had watched late on Saturday nights. Something would always grab that one girl’s hair and drag her down the stairs before it killed her. I wasn’t quite ready for that yet.

So, with no further thought, I cut the first piece of hair.

It wasn’t until later that day that anybody even noticed.

Shiro thought I’d tied my hair up to keep it out of my face and freaked the fuck out the second he realised he could now see the back of my neck for the first time since I was 14. I had to physically shove him away to stop him from messing it up more than it already was, but it was kind of nice to feel more normal. In the real world, this would have been a much bigger issue to most people. Bit we were living in a post-apocalyptic version of our home. Nobody really cared about haircuts here. At least, that was what I thought.

Apparently, our friends took them seriously after all. Pidge claimed to have never seen anything so weird in her life, and Hunk seemed just as shocked. I didn’t see the big deal. I’d cut it off, and that should have been the end of it. But apparently, it was much more of an issue than I was seeing it.

“I never thought I’d see the back of your neck again,” Shiro said as we all sat down to eat. His hand moved to my hair and I pushed it away slightly for the third time in the last hour. “It suits you though, even though you’ve fucked it up at the back,”

“Yeah, it’s cut pretty rough, Keith. You kinda look like you’ve tried to recreate a toilet brush on the back of your head,” Pidge remarked. I glared at her. “You just need it neatening up, that’s all,”

“I think it suits you, weirdly…” Hunk told me with a smile. I took the compliment, because that was probably the best I would be hearing.

“Where’s Lance? Isn’t he supposed to be eating with us today?” I asked curiously, noticing that he was the only one of the usual group that wasn’t sat at our table. Hunk looked toward the doors to the cafeteria and shrugged, returning to his food.

“I think he went on patrols with Matt and those people that showed up yesterday,” He told us all. “If he did he should be back soon,”

“What’s with those guys anyway?” Shiro asked. Pidge shrugged this time, a mouthful of food in her mouth.

“No idea. They call themselves the Blade. They offered to give us some protection if we let them stay here. So far, they’ve managed to clear a huge chunk of the city so as far as I’m concerned, they can stay fir as long as they like,” She explained. “Although Allura doesn’t seem to like them very much. I don’t know why,”

“Maybe we shouldn’t ask… She kinda scares the shit out of me when she’s in a good mood, and I haven’t even seen her in about 2 days. She’s been monitoring that CCTV footage non-stop since we set it up,”

“Maybe she’s onto something and doesn’t want to leave the monitors,” Shiro suggested.

The conversation went by as usual for a while before the doors opened again and a small group of people walked through talking among themselves. I turned to see them better, my eyes falling on Lance in the centre of them, who was clearly tired from his day of following the Blade around. He didn’t seem to notice me at first, but soon rushed over with that stupid smile he always seemed to have glued to his face once he realised there was a free seat on the table. He gratefully sank into a seat next to Hunk with a relieved sigh and let his head fall onto the back of the chair.

“Rough day?” Hunk asked him.

“You don’t know the half of it,” He replied, sitting up again after a moment. I kept eating my rations as though he wasn’t there, trying not to focus too much on the conversation and generally spacing out to my comfortable mind space that wasn’t usually occupied.

That was until I caught him staring at me in silence.

And when he caught me staring back.


End file.
